The year 2011 was still a great year for AEV!

Yesterday was the annual stockholder’s meeting of Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV) for the year 2011 and its income contribution of P16.5 billion was 14% lower than the previous year 2010, which AEV President & CEO Erramon “Montxu” Aboitiz attributed to lower net generation levels and weaker average selling prices, which also affected Therma Luzon due to increase in coal costs. A weaker demand due to cooler and wetter weather and faint economic growth resulted in 3% lower power sales of 9,422 gigawatt hours (GWh).

While this growth is much lower than last year’s income, to AEV stockholders however, it was a good year because the AEV Board approved a cash dividend of P1.58 per share to shareholders last Mar. 16 where the company paid over P8.7 billion in dividends last April 3, 2012. But overall, AEV made an impact in the power industry. For instance the Ambuklao-Binga Dam which AEV acquired a couple of years ago is now on stream after its rehabilitation with Ambuklao having 105 MW, inaugurated last quarter of last year, and Binga having 120 MW.

There is also positive news in AEV’s banking business when CitySavings Bank finally opened three new branches in Luzon. CitySavings is a thrift bank that has finally penetrated the huge Luzon market. Perhaps the biggest impact AEV has brought into the power industry is its “Cleanergy” coal plants which they started with the Toledo Power plant and now, AEV is building the 300MW coal plant in Davao City. AEV has showed those environmentalists that coal plants can be clean for as long as they use the new technology that AEV has been using in the power industry. All in all… 2011 was still a great year for AEV. Kudos to Montxu and his team for a job well done, which I’m sure will make a huge difference next year.

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Today, we hope we will finally see the end game of that farcical Senate impeachment trial for Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Renato Corona. What started to be a very serious offense against CJ Corona, which no less than Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III and his cohorts tried to pin on the Chief Justice, is now akin to a balloon that is fast deflating because of so many holes. In the end… it is crystal clear that PNoy’s original objective was merely to scare CJ Corona into quitting by mocking and tarnishing his reputation before the eyes of the public.

But while Pres. Aquino and his cohorts were extremely successful in getting the resignation of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez (perhaps because after all she may have been guilty of those rumors thrown against her), it did not happen with CJ Corona. Hence, the prosecution had to work on getting CJ Corona impeached and that meant that they now have to present all those damning evidences to pin him down. But the pattern of lies and innuendoes only boomeranged on the prosecution who was forced to reduce the 45 properties into 5 and the 8 articles of impeachment into 3 articles.

With CJ Corona finally taking the witness stand today, Filipinos are now hoping that we shall see the end game of this political exercise. But PNoy’s propaganda machinery has not stopped. Months back, stories of an acquittal were never in their radar screen. But these days, the scenario that they are selling to the public is that CJ Corona will still resign even if he is acquitted because he is already damaged goods. Come now? Who damaged or tarnished his reputation in the first place?

If the senator-judges acquit CJ Corona, all the more that he should stay because resigning would mean that he still played into the hands or the scenario that PNoy’s propagandists have dreamed of. On the other side of the coin, the senator-judges should take extra care that they do not convict CJ Corona if he can show to the nation that all those accusations thrown against him were nothing but mere fantasy and could not hold water in any court because the worst kind of injustice is to convict an innocent man.

So tomorrow, while it is not a holiday, I’m betting that the entire nation would be glued on nationwide TV to hear the testimony of CJ Corona. So the big question that will certainly ring on the ears of an anguished nation is whether the senator-judges would convict or acquit CJ Corona regardless of whether or not he tells the truth about the accusations hurled against him. We shall know the answer to this question this week.

The other question that the Filipino people would want to know is, whether or not Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III would accept the verdict of the senator-judges, especially if it is an acquittal. We can never predict what PNoy would do, but all I ask from our readers is to pray for peace.

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