Water security: A means to save lives, lick poverty

Can Justice Secretary Leila de Lima make fellow-Cabinet members abide by her actions against cartels? The question arises from a price-fixing rap filed with her office against foreign oil giant Chevron. De Lima by presidential edict is also the government’s fair-competition czar. And the anti-cartel case involves perceived abetting by de Lima’s counterpart for energy.

As reported in The STAR Monday, the case was filed by a small Caltex gas station, Petroleum Distributors and Services Corp. The PDSC protested to de Lima that Chevron is favoring with rate discounts and special terms its company-owned stations over dealer-owned ones. Allegedly this allowed Chevron, through its 20 or so stations, to control fuel retail prices in certain locales, to the injury of dealers and the public.

The rap was filed with de Lima as concurrent head of the Competition Authority. President Noynoy Aquino has designated her so, and created an Office for Competition under the justice department, via Executive Order 45 of June 2011.

De Lima’s extraordinary role is Malacañang’s compliance with the World Trade Organization, the ASEAN Free Trade Area, and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. It also enforces constitutional protection of free enterprise, and penal provisions against monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade.

The PDSC alleges that Chevron, through sister-company Chevron-Serv with the same stockholders, owns the favored retail stations. The foreign oil importer counters that it operates the retailers as a marketing tack, supposedly allowed by the oil deregulation law.

Last December the PDSC requested the Department of Energy for copies of Chevron’s contract with Chevron-Serv. The DOE compels oil companies to submit all contracts with their dealers, haulers, and LPG distributors. This is so the DOE can, by its rules, “ensure the observance of fair and equitable practices, and the enforcement of existing contracts.”

In February Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla relayed the PDSC request to Chevron for comment and action. Three days later he wrote the PDSC to deny its request, supposedly because he is under no obligation to share documents with just any requester.

The PDSC received Petilla’s reply only on April 1, whereupon it disputed his conditioning the grant of its request on Chevron’s comment and action. Its reiterated request unheeded by Petilla, the PDSC sought action by de Lima’s Competition Authority.

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If there’s any threat that troubles Dr. Nereus Acosta as presidential adviser for environmental protection, it’s to the country’s water security. Neglect of water resources hews directly with energy security, as seen in today’s faltering of hydroelectric power plants in Mindanao. As well, with health, food, and ecosystem security; think pollution, deforestation and landslides, and shortage of farm irrigation.

“We have so much water, yet very little can be used, and what can be used is wasted,” says Acosta, who is also GM of the Laguna Lake Development Authority. “Many think that saving water resources, along with the environment, is expensive, but it is not.”

Multibillion-peso waterworks, like dikes and drainage, are small compared to the cost of inaction. Failure to harness water spells ruin. Acosta gave as example the floods and mudslides from five recent super-storms. Ondoy and Pepeng in 2009, Sendong in 2011, and Habagat and Pablo in 2012 killed over 1,200 people, made four million families homeless, and damaged P12 billion in crops and infrastructures.

Manmade damage to the environment is harder to quantify, but the socioeconomic cost can only be higher. Only this week an oil spill was reported in the Manila segment of the Pasig River, coming from a private warehouse. It is part of Acosta’s concerns as LLDA chief; the Coast Guard and city hall also are investigating.

The Laguna de Bay Region covers Metro Manila and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon). All Laguna-Rizal cities and towns form part of the lake’s watershed. “We have to keep our people away from the constancy of danger,” Acosta notes. “Aside from lack of funding, our inability to protect the environment, and therefore our lives and livelihood, is institutional. Who is to orchestrate? Too many agencies and jurisdictions are involved.” Aside from the LLDA, there are the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Bureaucratic entanglements and turf wars are inevitable.

Local execs are unable to help much. Elections are held every three years so their “long-term” plans are really short term. Then there are the powerful business-political interests that block the cause of nature.

Acosta does not lack for Malacañang’s trust, as seen in his wearing two appointive hats. “President Aquino knows that environment care, as a social security, is crucial to inclusive growth,” he says. The widening of river mouths and relocation of flood-prone settlements around the lake are but the start of bigger projects.

As a former three-term legislator, Acosta also readily draws help from Congress. Like, Iloilo City Rep. Jerry Treñas is proposing to outlaw tampering with waterways, a major cause of floods in the LLDA domain. Acosta advises the split of DENR functions to two agencies, one for environment care, the other for natural-resources management for economic activity. In that he counts on the support of his sister, newly elected Bukidnon Rep. Malou Acosta.

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Reader Amanda Sison, Pasig City, amplifies on “freeloader legislating” (Gotcha, 7 June 2013): “Did the signatories of the Kasambahay Law know what they were signing? In wishing to uplift the status of the ‘lowly’ house helpers, did they even seek their sentiments? And what of the requirement to get new SSS numbers by homeowners who already have one from their places of employment or as existing employers? This new law imposes additional taxes in the guise of employers’ and employees’ SSS contributions. Additional money to the government should mean better services and facilities. But are we better off than before? To newly elected lawmakers: do your job right, that’s why we voters put you there.”

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