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We Take A Stand

ABOLISH BSP

JANUARY 20-26, 2014 • VOL.4 NO.21

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By Miguel raymundo

IF there’s any government agency which has to be scuttled, it’s the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

It has been incurring losses over the past years, a track record which has alarmed policy makers.

The numbers tell it all.

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COVER STORY YOLANDA

A Survivor’s Tale

By Dong Maraya

Abolish BSP!

By Miguel Raymundo

IF there’s any government agency which has to be scuttled, it’s the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).The numbers tell it all.

Unlike the banks the BSP oversees as the central monetary authority, the BSP has been incurring losses over the past years, a track record which has alarmed policy makers.

And yet, the BSP has the gall to ask for P150 billion more in additional capital from a debt-saddled government amid its deteriorating finances.

Latest BSP data showed that the state-run financial institution’s revenues fell 13 percent to P53.04 billion from January to November last year resulting in a net loss of P23.48 billion which has cast a shadow of doubt on the BSP’s financial viability.

In the face of its financial woes, questions arise on BSP’s dual purpose of being both a regulator and the regulated in a highly competitive financial market.

Tax Exempt

Amid crippling losses, it’s not surprising why the BSP has been desperately badgering legislators to grant it tax-exemption privileges.

Annually, the BSP pays about P4 billion in taxes, including income, value-added, real property and documentary stamp. Other central banks in the world are exempted from taxes.

According to the BSP, the savings from tax exemption will be used to fund vital activities, such as management of liquidity within the economy to continue keeping inflation within manageable levels.

BSP has long contended that it had inadequate tools to regulate the country’s fast developing financial markets and protect the Philippine economy from crises.

Bulk of BSP’s huge losses stemmed from its ill-advised launch of the short-term special deposit account (SDA) reportedly hatched by greedy banks in cahoots with some corrupt BSP officials.

SDA: Milking Cow

The scheme was meant to soak up excess liquidity in the financial market to avert any hike in inflation and interest rates, a bane of the government’s drive to spur economic growth.

In 2012, the SDAs stood at a whopping P1.6 trillion, almost equal the Aquino government’s P1.86 trillion budget that year.

Admittedly, the SDA has dragged down BSP’s finances as it forked out close to P96 billion on a four percent interest payments across all maturities to depositing banks that year.

Though SDA’s interest rate was scaled down last year to a 1-2 percent, this was only after making sure that the banks raked in profits which grew by 59.6 percent to P98.8 billion in the first six months of 2013.

Losses

In micro-finance, the centerpiece of President Aquino’s anti-poverty program, the BSP has miserably failed due to its flawed pro-elite policies.

Of the more than 700 banks in the Philippines the BSP oversees, only 27 percent -- the number has been declining – are engaged in micro-finance mainly through the poorly capitalized rural banks.

This is despite BSP’s pledge to make microfinance as its flagship program for poverty allevia-

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OpinYon

tion in 2000 even as more and more banks shift to the profitable consumer and corporate financing.

Another gray area is the highly speculative foreign exchange (forex) trading which dealt BSP P36 billion in losses last year as it tried to temper the peso’s rise versus the US currency.

No wonder, given its shaky finances, the BSP has been hard put remitting dividends to the national government. A Commission on Audit (COA) report showed that BSP has been remiss in its obligations to the national government amounting to P16 billion from 2003 to 2006.

State-owned firms are mandated by law to remit at least 50 percent of their net income to the government..

IMF Loan

And yet, the BSP has uncharacteristically extended a huge US$1 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2012 for relending to debt-ridden economies.

BSP’s unprecedented gesture has stirred a hornet’s nest., drawing criticisms from various groups who felt the money should have been used to pay back the country’s ballooning foreign debts.

The so-called IMF rescue fund is the same mechanism that bailed out the Philippines from its deep financial trouble in the early ’80s.

BSP has justified its loan to the IMF, saying it would interest from the proceeds as part of its mandate to manage the country’s foreign reserves currently valued at US$76 billion.

The BSP has taken pride in being able to help maintain a benign inflation within the country.

It also argued that keeping the increase in consumer prices within modest levels comes at a high cost for the BSP.

New Powers for BSP

The BSP likewise spends a significant amount for its forex-related trading operations to help reduce volatility of the exchange rate.

In Congress, there’s a proposal to give BSP officials and employees the “immunity from suit” status for actions done in the performance of their duties.

At the same time, the bill removes the requirement for these officials to “exercise extraordinary diligence” in their work.

The bill also gives BSP the authority to require any person or entity to surrender financial data and information through a subpoena (punishable by contempt if one fails to comply).

Other provisions of the proposed legislative measure empower the BSP to obtain information on transactions between a bank and its parent company, subsidiary or affiliate.

More importantly, the proposed law will empower BSP to look into bank deposits and investment accounts outside the ambit of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, notwithstanding present restrictions imposed by bank secrecy laws.

In addition, the BSP will also have the power to approve—or disapprove —transfers of ownership of at least 10 percent of a bank’s shares (whether done in one tranche or many).

Aware of insufficient regulatory powers under its present setup, it looks like BSP will soon have arbitrary powers piled on it in spades or risk an unceremonious exit.

IT has been over a month since typhoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) dropped its fury on hapless Visayas particularly Tacloban City. No one knew how strong 315 kph winds were, and no one was prepared for it.

I survived.

I am now in living in the comfort of a sister’s house in Laguna.

There is food, water, electricity, and television. It was on television that I saw the mayor of Tacloban, Alfred Romualdez, before a congressional inquiry tearfully narrating his encounter with DILG Secretary Mar Roxas where the latter said, “Bahala na kayo sa buhay nyo” after not getting from the local chief executive a memorandum that could “legalize the national government’s move to help the typhoon victims”.

The controversial exchange was recorded in a meeting conducted seven days after the storm.

No Waray ever knew of this meeting. Had they known about this, they could have reacted appropriately.

Brainstorming

What’s intriguing in that “brainstorming” session was that it took place while people outside were in dire need of help. The meeting took almost an hour and it seemed Romualdez and Roxas were only “storming sans the brains.”

I thought maybe Romualdez could have given Roxas that memorandum if only to hasten relief efforts. Time was of the essence.

In fact even without the national government’s aid, the local government could have little by little solved some problems on its own immediately, not seven days after, even if “the mayor is a Romualdez and the president is an Aquino.”

According to Roxas, some local executives, presumably including the mayor, took a not-so-serious stance despite repeated warnings about the typhoon and to compel their constituents to evacuate to safer grounds. With their uncaring demeanor, Mayor Romualdez and his ilk cannot be thoroughly blameless.

Now the Warays are mad. It might be a “political good-bye” for both Roxas and Romualdez, unless the Warays are lulled into forgetfulness in 2016.

Standing Guard

The day before the storm was just an ordinary day at the office for me doing my usual chores. At 5 pm, I started for home. Home was a single-room apartment which is 10 kilometers from Tacloban.

Surprisingly, even at that early evening there was no more available transportation. So I walked over to my sister’s house that was four corners away and decided to spend the night there.

My sister was surprised but happy when she knew I would be sleeping over. They were preparing to stay in a nearby hotel in the city for safer lodging. So they went to the hotel while I stayed to “guard” their house.

Then at about 4 am the next morning on November 8, torrential rains began to pour and the winds gathered strength. Electricity was eventually cut off.

In 30 short minutes, waters abruptly rose from ankle-deep to knee-deep to chest-deep ultimately reaching to second level of our ancestral home. Parts of the roof and walls were ripped off by the strong winds.

I found myself at the roof of

the house together with four other people. But the house was not able to withstand the storm surge as it collapsed into the raging waters bringing sweeping my four companions away. (I later learned that three of my companions survived, the fourth was not as lucky.)

Before the roof collapsed, I was able climb the firewall dividing our house and the adjacent building and stayed there for two hours.

While there, I sustained a nasty wound on my wrist caused by a flying G.I. sheet which I parried with a free arm as I precariously hung onto a signage off the second storey ledge of the building.

Tying my wound with a handkerchief, I saw people below clinging onto anything they can hold on to being smashed by the surging waters about six meters high. I saw a girl crying for help while holding a piece of furniture that kept her afloat. I can only look at her with sympathy.

Rescued

When the winds died, I was found by rescuers. I was brought to another building where a restaurant named Dahil sa Iyo was housed, was administered first aid and was given a dry t-shirt.

Around 50 people were also there; all soaked and shivering, some bruised.

Hours later, I heard someone shouting at the top of his voice instructing the wounded to board a dump truck. I scampered outside and on the streets I saw dead bodies floating, ignored by survivors who were still dazed from the nightmarish incident.

I walked half a kilometer to a hospital whose roof had also been blown away. Inside, I found hundreds of wounded. Half an hour later, with blood oozing from my cut wrist, I was finally treated and, without the nerve-numbing anaesthesia, the pain was unbearable!

Afterward, I walked 10 kilometers to a friend’s house. Fallen trees and electric posts blocked the road and water was still knee-deep.

It was like treading an obstacle course! The smell of death told of the severity of the situation.

Frantic

On the first up to the fifth day, people waited anxiously for help and when no help came people became frantic. The situation only became violent in days three and four, when people had been going on for days without food or water and the dead bodies still littered the streets. They looted every available business establishment that they thought can offer them food and water.

Initially, people only took what they needed. But when they saw no one was preventing them, they also took what they didn’t needrefrigerators, washing machines, and flat-screen TVs. “Where are our leaders and the police?” my friend asked. I commented to my friend that a “bandilyo” by barangay officials could have been done just like the good old days, if only to calm people’s nerves and give them assurance that help would soon be coming.

(News about anything was communicated by a town’s crier with an old-fashioned megaphone.)

But nothing of that sort happened.

People with nothing to eat for almost a week, and some family members missing, see no sign of government.

Everything is all water under the bridge now but my story remains.

WE TAKE A STAND

1/17/14 7:19 PM

Politics Activism Blues

News from Where You Stand

at 9AM! Of course we simply couldn’t let this pass us up. We decided to obtain a copy of the schedule and had it marked as a “certified true copy.” Meanwhile, we decided to “campout” the hearing room and thought of what course of action we should take. At the advice of some lawyers, we decided to attend the hearing lest we might get defaulted. The Meralco lawyers fi nally arrived at 2:30PM. Interesting, isn’t it? Regardless, we motioned for the hearing to be moved to another date because of all the shenanigans that just transpired. Our motion was granted

activist

By richard james Mendoza Dedicated to all my comrades-in-arms I’M a proud member of Anakbayan, a comprehensive mass organization of the youth.

So yes mother, I’m an activist just like my sister. Those times when I got home late? About more than half of those instances, I was either attending a meeting or having educational discussions with my comrades.

I’m that noisy and jobless bum that does nothing but rant on the internet and loiter on the streets. I’m that super duper evil guy who deceives my fellow youth with what can be said in the vernacular as “matatamis at mapanlinlang na mga salita,” the same method that’s also being utilized by those moneymaking pyramid scams, but I digress.

So what led me into this path? I honestly don’t know. And then came one particular day.

PCOS Forum

Sometime before the day of the elections last year, I attended a forum about the state of the upcoming elections as well as a short discussion of the PCOS machines, which was the main reason I attended the forum in the fi rst place since it kinda related to my interest

in IT stuff back then.

Though I knew about the relationship between US imperialism and the 2013 elections, it still shocked me back then when one of the speakers related it to the three problems that pester the country, which is imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism, with the latter being a new term to me back then. After the forum, some of them invited me to a rally which took place at the Comelec office in Intramuros, to which I admittedly hesitated to accept.

It was in that rally that I saw various progressive groups and alliance express their grievances against an institution which has often favored the ruling class by its railroading of the PCOS machines as well as harassing progressive groups such Piston by fi ling disqualification cases against them based on fl imsy and subjective grounds. It was there that I saw people take collective action to assert their rights so that they can be heard. It was also there that I was offered to join Anakbayan, in which I evaded at fi rst since I had a lot of reservations about joining progressive organizations (yes, I did have those) and that I didn’t want to experience what my sister went through inside the household in her fi rst few years that she became a full time activist.

However, the option of joining Anakbayan never left my mind.

appreciation A few months later, I fi nally attended an orientation and eventually became a member. This was around a week before Noynoy Aquino’s SONA. When I was handed the membership form, I hesitated (as usual) and as I accomplished the form, It thought to myself with something like “I probably should say to him that I’m not joining Anakbayan” but it soon changed into “I don’t know what world I’m entering into, but I’m going in anyway. Let’s wsee what happens.” I announced this to my sister and to Ka Mentong and the response was positive, which helped ease my mind about it.

Several months have passed since I became a member that I’ve begun to appreciate the value and importance of collective action.

Sometimes, I would remember a time when I attended an ERC hearing sometime around September 2011. Before the hearing, we were telling the other “kabansa’s” that the hearing would start at 9AM. However, we came to the venue only to stumble upon an empty room! A few days before, we double-checked the schedule by visiting ERC’s website as well as calling the ERC just to make sure. But when we checked the time on the website, it suddenly became 2:30PM! But as we found out, the bulletin board outside the hearing room listed the hearing

But why did I join Anakbayan anyway?

Why did I become an activist? Did I really have to join this organization just so I can say that I’m fighting for our rights; “para panindigan ko talaga ito,” as my mother said? Not really. I didn’t choose to walk this path; I was simply led into it by “some Will infi nitely stronger than my own,” to paraphrase Paul Laurence Dunbar. In those times where I visited the studio talking about various things as well as attending those hearings at ERC, there was always a thought that some things were missing. We may have had an audience, but we weren’t really reaching out to others, except perhaps to some other “force” (the radio program had been an occasional victim of signal jamming). Somehow, I felt that these things were simply not enough.

Back then, I often said and thought that educating and informing the people would be enough for them to take action. That is partly correct, but I learned that one should also organize the people into a group and then mobilize them into action. So why did I join again? I want… no, I have to serve the people. There are many others who are suffering from the chicanery and oppression of this God-forsaken land because of our inaction, hesitation, and sheer indifference. I joined because I realized that the revolution that we have been longing for so long can only be achieved if we can collectivize ourselves into an organized force for this is the only answer to the organized exploitation of the ruling classes. There is no room for apathy in this fed-up world.

The Presidency

T

HE country’s presidency is defi ned by the Philippine Constitution as an office occupied by a person in whom “executive power is vested” (Section 1, Article Vll), and who is elected thereto, provided he is “a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, a registered voter, able to read and write, at least forty years of age on the day of the election, and a resident of the Philippines for at least ten years immediately preceding such election.” (Section 2) The foregoing defi nition’s use of the pronoun “he” alludes to no gender in particular, and the defi nition is so liberally construed as to allow aspirants to come from the widest possible field of candidates. Hence, a pauper is eligible for the presidency, provided he meets all the cited requirements.

We can only therefore applaud the basic charter’s framers for their commendable choice of democratic principles that define the office’s occupant in terms of the barest possible minimum of eligibilities. Verily, the fundamental law disdains the notion that someone like Abraham Lincoln, who did not complete elementary school, cannot become president for his people.

To my mind, the constitution correctly portrays the president

bosses? And he wants to succeed P-Noy?!

as a father-image for the entire citizenry -- an eco-sociopolitical father, one might say, who is obligated by his office to even-handedly protect and advance the welfare of all his “children”, albeit blessed with a greater compassion for those in greater need.

MUSINGS

An Ideal President

Ronald Roy

Truly, a man who has himself known poverty in real-life terms is one who would have a sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others, and it is he who would be an ideal president.

It is sadly seldom seen that a man raised in poverty with “his heart in the right place” would be a more dependable chief executive, than one who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, graduated summa cum laude from the best school, and became a very visible top honcho in business and industry circles.

Well, I don’t know if Mr. Manny V. Pangilinan was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or graduated summa cum laude from Ateneo de Manila University, but allow me anyway to allude to the gentleman who is viewed by some quarters as the most ideal prospect for Malacañang’s occupancy after the 2016 elections.

With all due respect to those who hold otherwise, fund man-

Propaganda

ager MVP’s heart cannot be in the right place because it pulsates for his foreign principals known as Indonesia’s Salim Group of Companies. In fi ne, MVP’s main concern seems not to alleviate the lives of Filipinos a vast majority of whom are impoverished, but to make richer his already wealthy non-Filipino masters.

Needless to state, the most worrisome danger is the growing influence of foreigners over such critical utilities and services as electricity, water, transportation, health, media, and communications.

In health, for instance, notice how much streamlining of top hospitals like Cardinal and St. Luke MVP has done to bring medical services virtually beyond the reach of the poor and the shrinking middle class.

Isn’t it obvious that MVP cares only for rich customers who remit hefty profits to his foreign

Yes, I believe Mr. Pangilinan plans to succeed P-Noy. With a staff of top-notch propagandists, he may have already commenced an elementary PR campaign for public good grooming. Already, note how his name has become an ubiquitous buzzword in sports, entertainment, beauty pageantry and philanthropy.

How lucky can a guy get, with the support of foreignfunded propaganda bristling with superlative look-good images! But then, how bad will it be under an MVP Administration? Answer: Disastrous.

Prediction: MVP will launch a media blitz as 2016 nears.

It’s time netizens hunkered down to act as a counterbalance not only to biased and misleading information grooming candidates for president, but also to prospective government workers in general, elective, appointive or otherwise.

Media, Traditional and Social

Untrammeled radio, television, print and social media are of course the most eagle-eyed analysts in the scrutiny of government policies, programs and decisions. As such, the press is,

WE TaKE a STanD

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in the words of Amando Doronila, the “watchdog of public interest that reports public affairs accurately without fear or favor”, and serves as “eyes and ears of the people to whom it owes primary loyalty.”

Well, so too are the netizenry, and the Radio and TV networks, and at no other time has there been such an imperative for an all-out counterbalancing media agenda.

It’s pathetic that despite PNoy’s dogged crusade against corruption, graft’s contagion in government has worsened. Is the presidency, whose official words and acts impact most critically on our lives, ineffective? It’s even more pathetic that Pres. Noynoy labels the press (media in actuality) as a “cottage industry that makes a living out of nitpicking on (him)”, or words to that effect.

His Excellency has not changed since I told him three years ago, “View media as friends who want your office to succeed, and whose raison d’ être is to blow the whistle without fear or favor. They’re doing a job for democracy. If you view them as enemy, try winning them over under the friendly influence of the presidency.” (http://musingsbyroy.wordpress. com | 09186449517 | @ronald8roy | #musingsbyroy)

OpinYon

january 20-26, 2014

3 1/17/14 7:19 PM

OPINION

‘Pangil-inan’ Paradigm of ‘Class’

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Dilemma THE electricity rate hike case filed before the Supreme Court (SC) presents a classic dilemma.

Any way the SC cuts it, its decision will bear deep repercussions.

For Meralco and other industry players, an adverse ruling will send a negative message to their investors and will reportedly bring diminished profits—and rotating power outages in the summer.

Meralco already warned that even a TRO to the proposed rate hike would “damage all power industry participants”.

For Meralco’s five million-plus consumers a loss in court would mean an unprecedented increase in electricity bills, like a whopping PhP10.23 per kilowatt-hour in generation charges this month.

A court decision favoring Meralco will definitely put a deeper dent on PNoy’s already flagging popularity. Heck, it may well cause the downfall of his administration.

The math of the whole argument and the deal with the Wholesale Spot Electricity Market (WESM) and the implications of the Malampaya shutdown on power rates is greek to the average Juan dela Cruz. But every Juan knows that he could not afford to pay for higher electricity costs—not with his meager salary, not on top of the high cost of gasoline and other utilities.

In the end, the Supreme Court will have to decide based on its own appreciation of both the public and business interest. Everything boils down to the constitutionality (or unconstitutionality) of Meralco passing on additional costs to its consumers.

If so, what are the limits of this pass-on policy?

The Supreme Court has already included more respondents to the case by impleading six of Meralco’s suppliers. These developments are a welcome development because this means the is seriously looking into the charges of collusion between the industry players and the ERC and the charges of price manipulation.

The preliminary conference by the SC already allowed parties a closer look at the legal issues the justices will want to tackle and debate on this Tuesday.

There are also questions on the constitutionality of the automatic rate adjustments in the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), as amended and the issue of ERC approval.

All eyes are on the Supreme Court. The public waits.

T’S the scandal of the decade, the massive electricity price manipulation by Meralco with its intertwining shareholder in IPPs, Independent Power Producers - rigging the WESM (Wholesale Electricity Spot Market) price in collusion with BS Aquino and his DoE (Department of Energy) appointee secretary Jericho “Ikot” Petilla, the ERC (energy Regulatory Commission), PEMC (Phil. Electricity Market Corporation) and the controlled media and intelligentsia – is a vindication of the crusade against energy privatization this writer and colleagues’ struggle of the past sixteen years: essential public utilities like energy, water, infrastructure cannot be entrusted to inherently greedy, profit-seeking private corporations.

Vulturine Manipulation

Last January 6 Cong. Neri Colmenares in interviews on radio and TV exposed Meralco’s WESM market rigging using its long term electricity supply contract with Aboitiz’s power generating company at P 10/kWh. Instead of using this standby contracted power to fi ll the electricity supply short fall from the alleged (since this has to be investigated) Malampaya gas maintenance shutdown Meralco instructed Aboitiz to sell this through WESM from which Meralco bought at P62/ kWh (other reports say Meralco bought its own power at P32/kWh, but clearly at a huge overprice)—causing the huge spike in Meralco’s charge for December. Meralco, i.e. Pangil-inan, is caught with its fangs bared. Meralco stood to gain P52/kWh. Meralco’s price manipulation caused power rates to shoot up from P12.50/kWh, already the highest in Asia, to P16.50/kWh to become the highest power rate in the World in December 2013.

The public was in an uproar, Senator Trillanes warned of the “social volcano” exploding and accused Meralco’s Manny Pangilinan of gluttony (walang pagkabusog). Thanks to our crusade with other anti-energy piracy leaders and People’s Organizations the issue was brought to the Supreme Court which issued a TRO, and in the course of defending itself Meralco accused IPPs of being the beneficiaries of the huge price hike, Aboitiz felt alluded to and issued a statement that became the basis of Colmenares’ exposé.

Aboitiz Statement HERMAN TIU-LAUREL Publisher TONYPET J. ROSALES Managing Editor

OpinYon is published by digitek Publishing House, Inc., with editorial and business offices at no. 10 Pacita avenue, Pacita complex I, San Pedro, laguna.

TELEPHONE NUMBER

San Pedro: 214-0766 Email: opinyon.2010@ gmail.com website: www.opinyon.com.ph ISSN 2094-7372

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DAVE DIWA Opinion Editor FREDERICK FABIAN Social Media Director CARLOS RAJAMIRA Creative Director

When on January 10 Meralco fi led its own petition with the Supreme Court (SC) against the IPPs, PEMC (Philippine electricity Market Corporation) and the NGCP (National Grid Corporation of the Philippines) claiming they should be blamed for its P 4.15/kWh rate increase for December.

JOJO VALENCIA Layout Artist Editorial Consultants DIEGO CAGAHASTIAN LINGGOY ALCUAZ ERICK SAN JUAN RODRIGO CORNEJO RAY L. JUNIA Board Chairman & President ATTY. SALVADOR S. PANELO Ombudsman ATTY. RICKY RIBO, Legal counsel JOACHIM JOSHUA P. MEDROSO V.P. Business Development

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PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE Mentong Laurel The Aboitiz family is not without its major sins in the power privatization and swindles of the country which started with Cory Aquino’s appointment of patriarch Ernesto Aboitiz to the National Power Corp.(NPC) in 1987 and triggered the power blackouts, but it wouldn’t be blamed for this latest scam. Aboitiz power issued a statement, sent to us by ACT Philippines, a Makabayan Coalition party list, through Carl of the office of Colmenares: “,… Aboitiz Power Corporation’s subsidiary, Therma Mobile Inc. (TMO), which operates the diesel power barges moored in Navotas, does not benefit from any price movement in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM)…. TMO’s capacity is fully contracted to Meralco and it is paid an agreed rate under its Power Supply Agreement (PSA) . … This rate has provisional-approval from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), … The company makes the statement amidst news reports alleging that it participated in jacking up power rates in the WESM.” Aboitiz kept quiet if not for the scandal, its power barges used for this Meralco contract was bought from the NPC for scrap, repainted and reappraised three times higher.

Media Cover-up

I was the fi rst to try to put Colmenares’ exposé in print in an article “Vulturine manipulation” last January 15, but another newspaper refused to publish it.

Jojo Borja of Iligan Light and Power (ILPI), another crusader against Epira, asked why print media was not carrying the story.

I try: my previous OpinYon column castigated Inquirer’s Randy David for backing Malacañang’s claim that it was powerless about the scam, later Inquirer’s Peter Wallace defended Meralco’s price gouging. On January 17 the Manila times fi nally carried the story, the only one to do so. We can’t expect BusinessWorld and PhilStar to come out with it as Pangil-inan owns them already.

Others were muffled by PR operators of Pangil-inan.

Colmenares’ information came out in ANC because they could no control a live interview. The brewing conflicts between Meralco and the IPPs as the former tried to use the latter as scapegoats has brought out more into the open. Pangil-inan of course owns TV5, and with the multi-billion offer he has for GMA7 it can likewise be persuaded to just hold the news for a while. Other columnists like Boo Chanco appeal to Meralco to be nicer, but that is the height of naiveté as history teaches when in 2000 Enron excs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were jailed and JPMorgan in 2013 was caught and fined $415-Million by the U.S. Energy Regulatory Commission for power market manipulation.

Scam On Top of Scams

On January 14, Jojo Borja and I attended the ERC review of the PBR (Performance Based

Rate) at its San Miguel Ave. offices. The PBR is the 17% rate (with its incentives) for electricity that replaced the 12% RORB (Return on Rate Base) cap prior to 2003. The PBR is the original major scam under the Epira, circumventing the SC (Puno) decision in 2003 to disallow pass on of “income tax” of Meralco (P 30-Billion refund followed, thanks to crusaders like the late Cefie Padua and Naro Lualhati) and affi rmation of the 12%. ERC chair then Albano, followed later

by Zenaida Ducut, allowed the circumvention and continuation with the concoction of the PBR – with exemption of Meralco supplies from biddings.

At the hearing Borja raised the 2006 “revaluation” of the asset base of Meralco from P 46-Billion to P92-Billion by a stroke of the ERC Chair’s pen without any basis.

Hence, Meralco’s rates base increased (affecting the entire country) and which the late Mang Naro Lualhati raised hell on – Meralco’s Maximum Average Price (MAP) should only be P 0.90/kWh and not P 1.70/kWh as it is today. On top of this Borja has shown proof Meralco electric poles are overpriced 942% and transformers by 500% - all imputed into our electricity bills.

The ERC spoke of “risk” of the DU’s (Distribution Utilities) and “reasonable prices, but Borja said there is no risk in the business and I raise the corrupt history of the Epira.

Sons of Profiteering Class

Last January 17, Friday morning, aptly nicknamed DoE secretary “Ikot” Petilla was on DZRH for a long, long interview, spinning false tales around the Meralco price gouging scandal and omitting discussion of the WESM manipulation. When the Mindanao power crisis erupted in 2012 and 2013 the previous DoE secretary Almendras did the same (the Mindanao crisis was due to NPC throwing Maria Cristina water away instead of producing power – Jojo Borja has proof). Petilla is a son of the political clan in Leyte of the Liberal Party and an oligarchs’ pet (Lopez, Ayala, Aboitiz et al) like Almendras. They’re all in the “Family”.

In the DZRH interview Petilla said that privatization will not be reversed because the energy sector run by government would be worse, but isn’t 25 years of failures of privatized power under businessman Petilla and his ilk since 1986 enough proof of their failure? Joe Taruc made a point saying, “The private sector is efficient for its own interest.”

When government owned and ran power generation and distribution electricity rates were the lowest in Asia, and people could pry into the books. Privatized electricity concentrated so much power and profit that the owners could control (capture) the political and regulatory agencies like Congress and ERC, appoint its “sons” like Almendras and Petilla, and daughters like Ducut, to the agencies and tailor policies for the oligarchs.

(Watch “Architecture Advocacy Federation” with, GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Skycable Channel 213, www.gnntv-asia. com Sat., 8 p.m.and replay Sun., 8 a.m.; tune to 1098AM, Tues. to Fri. 5pm; ; visithttp://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)

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Opinion

The Viewpoints and outlook of the well-informed

More BSP Powers?

A BILL has been fi led in Congress to amend the BSP charter.

It seems to be a double barreled approach, similar bills having been fi led in both houses of Congress. The big rush is on, with a lot of articles having been written in attempting to justify the amendments.

A lot of words have been used to try and frighten the public into supporting these changes.

Statements like shadow banking, a term used to justify greater access to bank data that may be protected by the deposit secrecy law and attributed to the Governor himself.

But let us examine these things closely. As best as can be inferred what the good Governor is suggesting is that there are banks that are operating with two sets of books, meaning not all transactions are reflected on its books, thus shadow banking.

What possible transactions are those that might constitute shadow banking, a very serious indictment of those banks the Governor had in mind but did not disclose? I cannot, for the life of me, think that those are unrecorded deposits. I just can’t see why a bank will not record such transactions even if they

are bound by law to secrecy, and are within their rights to refuse to divulge the identities of the depositor.

Nonetheless, if a bank fudges its deposit levels, any forensic accountant worth his salt can easily determine if indeed there was an under or over recording, whatever might be the purpose of the bank.

On the other hand, there might be instances when borrowers of the bank might be disguised because, maybe, the credit transaction might violate DOSRI rules, meaning the limits to lending to the owners of the bank and their affi liates. But again, if the BSP smells that this is happening, it is not difficult to discover as BSP examiners go through the lending transactions of any bank. Lending is not covered by deposit anti-secrecy laws.

I remember that similar issues were raised in the Banco Filipino case. I remember having been amused, not because I agreed with any fudging of the books or even reckless lending or any other unsound banking actions but because the bank was under the controllership of the BSP at the time those trans-

RAY OF HOPE Ramon Orosa actions were undertaken. Well, you see, the Controller, if he is worth his salt, cannot claim innocence as controllers typically review the lending transactions or any transaction of the bank of which he is controller.

If there are other such anomalous, shadow banking transactions being done by other banks, the present BSP powers are sufficient to cause such banks to regret what they might be doing.

What is the BSP Governor suggesting, that politics plays a hand in such situations? That he is incapable of disciplining the banking ranks? There might be room, however, for a more precise and telling defi nition of bank actions that could be considered to fall within the purview of unsound practices and merit outright dis-

qualification of those involved or even the cancellation of the banking franchise should the offenses warrant it.

If the BSP wants to pierce the identity of any particular depositor, let it be on terms equal with the provisions of the anti-money laundering law. Let them apply with evidence to an appropriate court and state why they think such disclosure is in the national interest or why such information is so material to whatever issue they might be pursuing with the bank. It would be extremely inadvisable to just grant such broad and invasive powers to the BSP. The BSP may be operating at

higher levels than the anti-money laundering commission, but, in my view, the banking secrecy law is no barrier to progress and is an important tool in attracting people to put their money in banks. As they say, if it ain’t broke don’t fi x it.

Do I sense that perhaps this is a disguised attempt to bow to American pressure because they want to extend their extra territoriality policies to the Philippine banking system? And they can have access through the BSP on say the deposits of any American residing or doing business in the Philippines or any foreigner for that matter? More on this issue next time.

If there are other such anomalous, shadow banking transactions being done by other banks, the present BSP powers are sufficient to cause such banks to regret what they might be doing. What is the BSP Governor suggesting, that politics plays a hand in such situations?

The True Picture ‘LOOSE lips sink ships’ is an American English idiom meaning “beware of unguarded talk”. The phrase originated on propaganda posters during World War II. The phrase was created by the War Advertising Council and used on posters by the United States Office of War Information.

The gist of this particular slogan was that one should avoid speaking of ship movements, as this talk (if directed at or overheard by covert enemy agents) might allow the enemy to intercept and destroy the ships.

There were many similar slogans, but “Loose lips sink ships” remained in the American idiom for the remainder of the century and into the next, usually as an admonition to avoid careless talk in general.

No Longer Applicable

But in this age of high-tech information gathering and sharing especially through the internet and the widely use of several social networking sites, keeping mum on certain information that pertains to a country’s national security is no longer applicable, and some are using this avenue to mind conditioning or as deliberate leak of information.

Take for example, the endless word wars via rhetoric and double talk of countries especially claimants in the disputed area in the South China Sea (SCS) plus the saber rattling between the United States versus China. Such exchanges of provocative words are the reactions to certain actions taken usually by both China and US that involve contested areas in the region.

Such actions usually pertain to the military buildup of both Beijing and Washington that were conveniently posted on the internet through online newspapers and defi nitely in their government-controlled media. The mere fact that these are deliberate leaks, there are still a lot that these two giants are not telling the media because it might just ‘sink ships’ in the process.

True Picture

One such ‘secret’ is about the true picture of their economies, both countries are trying to hide the sad realities of the situation that their economies are in the brink of collapse or shall I say in the process of collapsing and such situation might lead to internal confl ict among their citizenry.

Let us heed the words of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in his letter to Col. William F. Elkins dated November 21, 1864 -’ see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed’ (Thanks to my friend and loyal listener, Rels Octaviano for this quote.)

May it be the global elites or the local elites, through corporations, these elites are enriching themselves unabated.

Sounds familiar? Our country is actually not spared from this phenomenon.

Like I used to say, the G2

WHISTLE BLOWER Erick San Juan (China and US) needed war to avoid an internal confrontation (translation-civil war). But recently it was China that has been creating situation that spells provocation. Scenarios that have made its neighboring countries nervous from ADIZ to the much recent one - the new Chinese fishing restrictions in disputed waters in the South China Sea.

Worsen Tensions

The legislature of China’s Hainan province approved rules in November 2013 that took effect on January 1,2014 requiring foreign fishing vessels to obtain approval to enter waters under its jurisdiction.

Such a move, if broadly enforced, could worsen tensions in the region. Beijing claims almost the entire oil- and gas-rich South China Sea, rejecting rival claims to parts of it from the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.(Reuters) My observation was seconded by this article Did Soros Just Predict a China Crash? by William Pesek that in a Jan. 2 op-ed for Project Syndicate, George Soros didn’t say whether he’s hitting China. But he did connect the dots in a way that can’t make President Xi Jinping happy. To Soros, the main risk facing the world isn’t the euro,

the U.S. Congress or a Japanese asset bubble, but a Chinese debt disaster that’s unfolding in plain sight.

“There is an unresolved selfcontradiction in China’s current policies: restarting the furnaces also reignites exponential debt growth, which cannot be sustained for much longer than a couple of years,” Soros wrote.

Xi would be negligent to ignore Soros’s warnings. He’s hardly alone: Peking University professor Michael Pettis and Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates have been beating this drum for years. Silvercrest Asset Management’s Patrick Chovanec worries about a “shadow” Chinese balance sheet that would be keeping policy makers awake around the globe, if Beijing’s obsessive opacity weren’t concealing the problem. (You can read his latest concerns in this Jan. 3, 2014 Bloomberg View op-ed.)

Remembering George Soros

We remember George Soros, the billionaire who fi rst shook a major government in September 1992, when he led an attack on the British pound. For his role in humiliating London and

Both countries are trying to hide the sad realities of the situation that their economies are in the brink of collapse or shall I say in the process of collapsing and such situation might lead to internal conflict among their citizenry.

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forcing former Prime Minister John Major’s government to exit the European exchange-rate mechanism -- essentially the euro -- Soros reportedly netted $2 billion. Soros made a bundle off America’s subprime debt crisis as well. Here in Asia, his legend has loomed large since 1997, when then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused him, bizarrely, of heading a Jewish conspiracy to spark an Asian crisis.

People haven’t made lots of money betting against China.

But Soros is absolutely right that there’s a worrisome disconnect between China’s pledges to move away from excessive investment and over-borrowing and toward a services-based economy without sacrificing rapid growth. If Xi doesn’t act now, Soros could possibly make more than $2 billion when things go awry and savage the global economy. Add a zero. (Ibid) Like any country’s economy, if it is built in bubbles, the day will come that it will just burst and people will ask what hit them because they never heed the echoes of the past and so they will always repeat history. And the sad part is, history might not be kind to them in the end.

OpinYon

january 20-26, 2014

5 1/17/14 7:19 PM

Environment International report says:

PHL Protected Areas, Poorly Managed

Legarda Hails Proposed Climate Resiliency Fund SENATOR Loren Legarda today welcomed the proposal of the Department of Finance (DOF) to create a climate resiliency fund, among other measures, that will be used to climate-proof the country.

Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change, said that the DOF’s proposal is important in building the country’s resilience to disasters and impact of climate change.

The DOF is still working on the details of the fund, which will be used to ensure that infrastructures are built in safe areas and are structurally sound.

“The proposed climate resiliency fund is timely and relevant, especially for our nation whose economic losses from disasters have increased 18-fold since the 1970s. It is good that we have a Finance Secretary who understands his department’s crucial role in building a resilient nation,” said Legarda, UN Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

for Asia-Pacific.

“It is important that we invest on safe and sound infrastructure projects because, as the 2013 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction noted, middle-income countries like the Philippines have high levels of risk because of weaker infrastructure, which affects a nation’s annual average loss to disasters,” she added.

The Senator also stressed the importance of ensuring that critical public infrastructures, especially schools and hospitals, are designed with disaster prevention and mitigation in mind and built with extra safety measures.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) recommends that all new hospitals and schools add 4% of total construction cost to be spent on disaster mitigation and extra safety measures.

Aside from the climate resiliency fund, the DOF is also looking into a guarantee fund

for lending institutions and an insurance mechanism for local government units to facilitate speedy recovery and rebuilding of communities and industries affected by disasters.

“Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation must be closely linked to development, which is why the DOF’s role is vital in building a resilient economy,” said Legarda.

The DOF is among the agencies that will participate in the Technical Briefing and High Level Forum on Strengthening Disaster Risk Insurance in the Philippines, an undertaking by the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, the Senate Committee on Climate Change, and the UNISDR, which will be held onJanuary 21, 2014 at the Philippine Senate.

The forum will explore on practical options for disaster risk insurance for the Philippines and promoting incentives for public and private sector investment in disaster risk reduction.

A NEW study conducted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in cooperation with the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) revealed that conservation efforts within Philippine protected sites are severely inadequate.

“The overall assessment of the state of PA (protected area) management in the Philippines was poor,” read the study entitled “National Management Effectiveness and Capacity Assessment (NMECA) of Protected Areas in the Philippines,” which was released on Wednesday.

“Through various lenses, it was found that biodiversity… continue(s) to be threatened,” it added.

This study provided a nationwide comprehensive view on the effectiveness of protected area management in the country—a first of its kind.

The report covered 61 sites or 25 percent of the total 240 key protected areas all over the country. Among the areas subjected to this study were the North Negros National Park, Bicol National Park, the island province of Batanes, Moutn Kitanglad and Mount Pulag, among others.

But not only are the Philippines’ conservation efforts poor, none of the protected areas in the country met international standards.

Theresa Mundita-Lim, Biodiversity Management Bureau chief, revealed that there is no key biodiversity area in the country that adheres to global standards.

“Wala kaming PA na nagmemeet ng criteria kaya wala kaming naidentify na best protected area,” she told reporters in a chance interview after the press conference.

Still, Lim noted that a management challenge of protected areas is a “global trend” and the country is not the only one succumbing to it.

The study identified budget constraints and government agencies’ overlapping mandate as the biggest challenges of protected area management.

“Overall management of the protected areas is significantly affected by limited financial and manpower resources,” it noted.

The report cited that only four protected areas are covered by Republic Acts while the remaining 57 sites covered by the study were legitimized with mere Presidential Proclamations. This indicates that regular and sustained funding is not present.

Meanwhile, the report noted that passing of Republic Act of 10629 last September may aid in this budgetary problems. According to the law, 75 percent of the Integrated Protected Areas Fund, income generated from entrance fees, would be directed to the local level. Before, 100 percent of the fees generated by the protected area were remitted to the national treasury.

Lim said that her bureau is scheduled to meet with the Budget Department next week to discuss the implementing rules and regulations of the new law and to ask how to implement the new measure on the ground.

“Open access to protected areas resulting threats due to local inaction and weak enforcement of zones overlapping with the responsibility of DENR and LGUs is deemed to be the major cause of the problem,” the report opined.

For her part, Lim noted that the Environment Department has set a meeting with National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to resolve ground-level issue of area management.

“We would like to see how the IPs can assists us in protected management areas,” she said during the press conference.

Likewise, the study opined that only a handful conservation efforts contribute to the local economy.

“Very few sites reported on how the PAs are contributing to the local economy especially in generating economic opportunities from ecotourism, supply of key ecosystems goods and services to the downstream areas, and PA-dependent livelihoods,” it said.

DENR Team Rescues Dugong A TEAM from the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), formerly Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has successfully rescued on Thursday a neonate, male dugong or seacow that got stranded in the waters off Barangay Binulasan in Infanta, Quezon.

BMB Director Ma. Theresa Mundita Lim said the young dugong was found stranded by fishermen Michael and Manuelito Nolledong of said barangay, who immediately sought help from the local DENR office.

“Fortunately, when the report of the stranded dugong came in, a technical staff from our CALABARZON office, Forester Jeff Cruz, was in the area so he led the rescue, including the gathering of necessary data,” Lim said.

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According to her, the young marine mammal got stranded due to low tide.

She also said the rescued dugong, which measures 1.06 meters long, was temporarily transferred to the nearby barangay of Dinahican, also in Infanta, to shield it from strong waves but will be released soon when the sea gets calm.

“We have a technical team right now in the area led by a veterinary doctor, Dr. Rizza Salinas, to release the dugong as soon as the sea gets calm,” Lim said.

Other BMB personnel on hand to help in the release of the dugong back to water are Nilo Ramoso, Renato Borja and Bibiano Mejino.

Also called “duyong or baboy dagat”, dugongs belong to the animal group Sirenia. Like dolphins and whales, dugongs are air-breathing marine mammals.

“They could not stay long underwater; they have to surface from the water to breathe. Since they could not swim fast, they are an easy target of poachers who hunt them with nets, dynamite or spear guns,” Lim stressed. Dugongs swim at a speed of five kilometres per hour.

Lim explained that dugongs are classified as “critically endangered species” and that the government prohibits their hunting, trading, transporting or possession by virtue of Republic Act 9147, also known as the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act, violation of which is punishable with imprisonment from six to 12 years and/or a fine from P100,000 to P1 million.

Lim urged coastal residents to report immediately dugong strandings to the nearest DENR office.

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Agriculture Indian Agriculture

A Model for Philippine Agriculture

By V.L. Sonny Domingo

AGRICULTURE in India is no different from the agricultural sector of the Philippines. The average landholding is 3 hectares and everybody is trying to sell their farms to land developers and leave agriculture or food production.

Problem is, you can not eat technology, or non agricultural endeavors. You can not modernize a state on IT and space technology alone.

You have first to modernize agriculture which is the major livelihood of developing countries.

And so Karnataka, a state of India with 4 million hectares of arable land like that of the Philippines, asked the Director-General of the International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) who happens to be a Filipino in the person of Dr. William D. Dar, how they could increase the growth of their agriculture which was then at 0.5% per year.

Dr. Dar used to be the Secretary of Agriculture of the Philippines whose term was shortened by politics and accepted the job of leading ICRISAT which was also then in the doldrums for lack of funds and projects.

The Beginning

It all started when there was a drought in the area. All the lands were dry except that of the lands occupied by ICRISAT. The oligarchs of India, not knowing anything about agriculture, could not do anything to save Karnataka from its economic meltdown. All the industries and new buildings they had to modernize could not produce food for them.

But the growth of their agriculture was stagnant and below 1%.

Moreover, 60% of its population depended on agriculture. And there was a big yield gap on the crops that they produced from its potential yield.

Dr. Dar said, their agricultural extension program was also absent.

There, agriculture had nowhere to go despite World Bank assistance.

It took the state officials to ask for help after visiting ICRISAT and observing that while their farmers were not producing any crop, ICRISAT continued to produce and harvest their mandated crops.

And so Dr. Dar and his ICRISAT team sat down to map a plan and strategy to help them out.

What they initially recommended was not the introduction of new crops or new varieties which is always the traditional approach of western agricultural experts including farm mechanization (as the Philippines is now doing).

Dr. Dar said that he presented a simple plan and strategy to them but did not claim it to be the solution but rather a choice for the government of Karnataka to accept or not.

ICRISAT did not want to impose anything on its host government nor claim to have the know-it-all knowledge of agricultural development.

The government of Karnataka adopted the plan and provided the funds needed. It was as simple as that. In the first place they had no alternative at that time on how to get their farmers out of poverty and produce more food for their growing population

Karnataka-State in Disrepair

Politics, like here in the Philippines, is the pastime of the rich and the famous. The farmers just stood by watching what their politicians will do next.

When I was there, they were trying to split an area so that there will be a new set of government officials.

This was just because they had a difference dialect and they hoped that by splitting the province into two major dialects will give them progress.

It is practically the same here in the Philippines where we split a province to have a north and south province only for both provinces to end up poorer in resources and capabilities.

Karnataka was originally known as the State of Mysore. It has its own Silicon Valley and Space Program. It has a rich history and very progressive in terms of industry.

But the growth of its agriculture was hardly 1 per cent per year. With a population of 80 million most of them are in agriculture and planting cotton and other crops.

Like the Philippines, most of its arable lands were dry lands or rain fed. They had poor production and therefore had poor living standards.

They also had declining farm labor and has become a major problem.

Karnataka’s agriculture alone accounted for 12.3% of India’s GDP in 2009-2010. 58.4% of India’s population relies on agriculture as their primary means of livelihood.

Of all agricultural products, wheat and rice accounted for 78% of India’s total food grains production in 2009-2010. Karnataka has been the recipient of the Government of India’s numerous schemes for the agricultural development.

The Plan and Strategy

ICRISAT and the Karnataka government officials sat down to make a plan. They agreed to make it a mission approach with the following innovations; Science-led development approach through farmers’ participatory action research; Soil fertility status assessment

as an entry point for unlocking the potential; Soil fertility status GIS maps and soil test-based nutrient management recommendation; Capacity building of farmers, researchers and department staff and policy makers (new extension system); Convergence; Consortium; Collective responsibility, actions, sale of operation; and, End to end solutions.

The delivery of the above innovations was to be done via mission approach. The missions were done district by district. Their timeframe was 4 years. They targeted to increase yields by 20%.

They had a name for this novel approach and the government of Karnataka provided all the funds needed. They called it Bhoochetana (soil rejuvenation).

Bhoochetana

Bhoochetana is ICRISAT’s way out of poverty. ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics) is a global agency under the servant leadership of Dr. Dar. Its mandate is to assist upland/rain-fed areas in developing countries which are hotspots of global poverty, malnutrition and degradation.

What ICRISAT did to increase the yields of farmers in the Government of Karnataka in India is no longer a dream. It is now a reality.

The Bhoochetana program was sponsored by the Dept. of Agriculture of Karnataka in partnership with ICRISAT that provided the technical backstopping.

In the four years of its implementation under the program of Bhoochatana, a 40% increase in yields was attained worth US$240 million (PhP10.5 billion) with Benefit to Cost Ratio of 6:1.

The four million farmers that registered were able to have a second crop. This was because under the program, a soil mapping, watershed development and use of improved varieties, was put in place with the farmers at the center.

ICRISAT with its State of the Art Soils Laboratory was able to analyze millions of samples in just one year and showed to the farmers’ thru wall bulletins’ the status of their farms in terms of soil nutrients. This led them to understand why they had low yields.

THE Program

With funding from the Dept of Agriculture of the Government of Karnataka, ICRISAT then proceeded to do water harvesting under its Watershed Development Department headed by Dr. Suhas P. Wani (now called the “Father of Bhoochetana”).

Check dams were built with the farmers’ labor (with allowance) along the gullies to keep the water in place and be absorbed by the aquifer, which stayed there even during the dry season. Farmers used it by pumping out or building a water pool near their farms and pump it out with electric motor water pumps that irrigated their farms when needed under furrow or drip irrigation.

Bhoochetana then proceeded with the training of prospective farm facilitators who are mostly outstanding farmers in the area.

Funding was then provided from State and Federal resources in convergence with on-going programs.

Local seed banks were developed and bundled with micro nutrients and bio-fertilizers in its technology transfer to farmers (which otherwise opted for seeds only).

Ensuring proper identification of beneficiaries, farm facilitators, publicity and awareness building was a must. The participation of state universities was also a must.

Program Implementation

The key processes adopted in implementing Bhoochetana were as follows: (1) Clarity of the Concept.

(2) Farmers Selection. (3) Farmer Facilitator (FF). (4) Training (before starting). (5) Subsidized inputs. (6) Regular Follow-up. (7) Local Video of Success. (8) No Hidden Agenda.

(9) Night Meetings.

The principal Constraints that came out were as follows;

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1. Poor awareness at early stage.

2. Lack of confidence on new technology such as application of micro-nutrients and bio-fertilizers.

3. Timely supply of INPUTS. 4. Supply of inputs at local level.

5. Shortage of staff.

6. Fund management.

7. Seed distribution centre.

8. Result oriented approach.

The outputs were observed to be as follows: Micro nutrients and bio-fertilizers application became popular.

Farmers became the staff that made demonstrations and convince other farmers.

University scientists became more interested and interfaced with the program.

The program had 4 C’s as follows: CONSORTIUM of research, education, and field based agencies to implement the program.

CONVERGENCE with the department schemes and other programs.

CAPACITY BUILDING of the consortium, partners, farmer facilitators, lead farmers and other stockholders, and COLLECTIVE ACTION at all level during program implementation on Mission Mode.

As a result, there was a statewide agricultural growth rate increase of 5.9% from 0.5% and 40% average increase in yields.

Inanglupa

Following the success of Indian agriculture, Inanglupa (Motherland Movement) was founded in India

by Dr. Dar for the Philippines with a group of technologists who were undergoing Bhoochetana Training, Media Specialist, Filipino Scientist and a farmer leader that was invited to see the progress of this novel approach.

An INANGLUPA Newsletter was established and made the following report in one of its issues as follows: The initial group of volunteers to Inanglupa that participated in a series of organizational meetings finally came up with the Vision, Mission and Goals as follows’ VISION – “Nurturing a farmer centered, inclusive, science based, market oriented, climate smart Philippine Agriculture.”

MISSION – “To empower stakeholders towards food and nutrition security, economic prosperity, environmental sustainability to uphold human dignity”.

Dr. Dar, founder of the movement, also announced that Inanglupa is designed not to compete with existing government programs but to enhance them in the spirit of a public-private partnership towards the development of the smallholder farmers and rural development.

He said in a presentation for ICRISAT that Inanglupa will however re-invent Philippine Agriculture that will be resilient and climate smart.

Dr. Dar said in an interview with Ike Seneres at the Global News Network that the idea is to have a natural resource management such as soil health and water management or rainfall harvest to nurture the growth of plants and make sure that they will have all of the macro and micro elements to increase productivity, profitability for the farmers and sustainability.

OpinYon

january 20-26, 2014

9 1/17/14 7:19 PM

OPINION

Connected Cities

B Pioneer of online Gaming From page 12

Questions

However, Ben was not sure how to make money from the project. How would they get people to pay for the games?

For network gaming, it was easy � you just pay the cashier of the gaming center or internet café. But how would it be in the case of MMOGs? Anyone could virtually play anywhere with the use of the internet.

So Ben thought that there should only be one center point of registration. And the only way to do it was for gamers to log-in and be required to pay before they play.

When Ben started spreading the word about their planned business, a lot of people were skeptical about it. But he was unfazed. Level Up! got the publishing rights for two online games– Oz World and 3D Chat.

These games were not that popular but they served as their testing ground to see the response of the market most especially the number of subscribers and the ability of the infrastructure to handle large amounts of traffic. The results were not spectacular but they decided to continue on and got a more popular game. It was the time they got Ragnarok from Korea.

ragnarok

Ragnarok is a role-playing online game where players take on roles (thief, acolyte, merchant, etc.) and then interact with other players in real time. Unlike games such as CounterStrike, the world of Ragnarok is persistent. This means that even if you log off, the world continues to turn, and when you log on again, real time has elapsed.

It is massive because of the game’s ability to accommodate a huge number of players at any one time. In the Philippines, during peak times, there are 25,000 players playing concurrently. In Thailand, where it is also the biggest MMOG, Ragnarok registers 80,000 players at peak time.

Just like in the real world, players can converse, court, cooperate, and trade. But unlike in the real world, they can hunt and fight monsters for prizes. The goal? To get to level 99 from level 0. But really, it’s more than that.

Created in Korea by a company called Gravity Corporation, Ragnarok became the dominant MMOG in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and China.

Growth

With its introduction to the Philippines in early 2000, the game grew from zero to 60,000 players in six months. And Ben’s guerilla marketing strategy helped boost the game’s popularity.

Merchandising was the next step. Ben brought out Ragnarok shirts, Ragnarok dolls, Ragnarok magazines and notebooks.

“I saw a complete immersion in the Ragnarok lifestyle,” Colayco said in a newspaper interview. “When the player turns off his computer and turns on the TV, he sees Ragnarok on MTV, Ragnarok on the cell phone, Ragnarok T-shirts and dolls.”

Ben also made it a point to be present in events like anime and gaming conferences, venues that other youth marketers dismiss because they are considered too fringe.

“This ability to go where the market goes is particularly important when you’re dealing with skeptical youth who know when they’re being sold to. The key to getting the youth is through schools,” he said.

EING the mobile messaging capital and the call center capital of the world, the Philippines is in a good position to transform our human habitats into connected cities, wherein all public services could be within the reach of citizens regardless of where they are, and regardless of what they need.

Aside from the “consumption” model of measuring economic poverty, there is now an alternative “availability” model.

I support this other model, but I would personally prefer to call it the “accessibility” model, a term that is more compatible with “connectivity”, as I see it.

In the consumption model, economic poverty was measured in terms of the ability of a household to be able to afford an imaginary basket of goods and services that they would need to sustain their basic standards of living. In the “availability” model, economic poverty is measured in terms of the availability to them of a certain set of basic goods and services.

Perhaps it is just a matter of semantics, but I prefer to use the term “accessibility” model, because I think it would not make sense to have these goods and services “available” to them, if they still could not “access” it.

This is where “connectivity” becomes relevant, because it is a means to provide more “accessibility”.

The need for mobility or access to public transportation could provide us with a good example of the difference between the “consumption” model and the “accessibility” model. For example, not everyone would be able to buy a car for their private use, but if they could have access to public transportation, they would still be able to move around, as if they have a private car.

Availability and accessibility would actually have a direct correlation with each other, in terms of quality of service. For example, a system of public transportation could supposedly be available to all citizens, but if there is no system to move the vehicles around in good order, then these would still not be accessible.

For practical reasons, a good system of scheduling public transportation arrivals and de-

SCIENCE WORKS Ike Señeres partures would also be needed, along with a good online system for booking reservations and ordering tickets. As a matter of fact, I believe that there should be a good system that will enable all citizens in a connected city to easily book and order all goods and services.

Being the mobile messaging capital of the world, we could say that there are more Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards here per thousand people than anywhere else in the world.

However, we could also say that since the SIM market for people to people (P2P) usage here is already saturated, the market is now ready for machine to machine (M2M) SIMs, the new evolution of this technology.

As the technologies would eventually turn out, M2M will power connected homes that would in turn form the broader human habitats of connected cities. Some experts in information and communications technology (ICT) are referring to M2M as the “internet of things”, in direct reference to the “internet of people”. As it is now, people could already access the internet using mobile devices.

More often than not, local government units (LGUs) would fi nd it difficult to computerize their operations because of budgetary reasons. That is no longer a problem now; since many technology providers are already offering their services on a fee basis, meaning that the LGUs need not spend anything anymore upfront. In this case, I am also talking about citizens being able to access LGU services from anywhere, and not just the computerization inside the city halls.

Officially, the Philippine government has already adopted “inclusive growth” as an economic strategy. As I see it, this strategy should result in an “inclusive society” wherein ev-

eryone should have access to all services regardless of whom they are and where they are. The key to this I think is to have a “loving and caring” government that would “love and care” for everyone, regardless of who sits in the halls of power.

More often than not, the poor, the old and the disabled are the ones who are excluded from the so-called “inclusive society”. In reality, the national government agencies are too far to physically reach out to the people who are in the distant places. No matter how far these people are however, they could have online access.

For all intents and purposes, a mobile device could now do what a personal computer could do. That said, anyone anywhere no longer needs a personal computer to access the internet, and also to access public services by using the internet. The issue of having online access should already become moot and academic by now, because internet cafe rentals are now affordable.

Since online access is no longer an issue, the only problem now is the back end organization at the LGU side that could service the front end that is servicing the people out there. In simple terms, the online infra is only just the means to gain access, but in order for the services to be delivered externally, the personnel at the LGU side needs to build their own internal systems.

As a bonus, the LGU officials could now help the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in their localities to gain access to global markets through electronic commerce. This too would not require any upfront costs.

That said however, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done at the back end, because without a good product, SMEs should not even venture into the global markets.

Since the technologies are already available and the markets are already waiting, the only thing that is lacking now is the initiative of the LGU officials to make a decision to move forward, so that their own localities could become connected cities.

First things fi rst however, they have to become loving and caring.

For feedback, email iseneres@ yahoo.com or text+639083159262

Merger

In 2012, Level Up! Inc. (LUI) merged with fellow industry giant IP E-Game Ventures Inc. (E-Games) and the merger somehow marked a new era in the online gaming industry.

“With this merger, it’s not just about the business. It’s about bringing communities together,” added Enrique Gonzalez, CEO of IP Ventures Group (IPVG), the mother company of E-Games.

“And now, fi nally, E-Games and Level Up! are one. And that will give gamers a lot more people to play with and a lot more games to choose from.”

Gonzalez added that developers of current game titles held by the two companies are “excited about the merger,” and have promised a lot of new content for the games.

Shifting Platforms

Despite their optimism about the online gaming industry in the Philippines, the two executives admitted that the gaming landscape is slowly evolving, especially with the entry of new gaming platforms such as mobile and social games, as was earlier pointed out by analysts.

Ben said these new platforms are “just another fact of entertainment life” that, so far, has not cannibalized their share of the market. He noted, however, that they are “really looking at it closely,” particularly in the aspect of potentially expanding into these new platforms.

“We have to, [eventually],” Colayco said, when asked about their expansion plans into other gaming platforms. “We’re not just a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) gaming company, we’re a video game and entertainment company.”

And with the entry of smaller players into the industry coupled with the increasing PC and broadband penetration rates, it’s not hard to see how online gaming–in spite of the challenges–would continue to enjoy a loyal local following in the years to come.

REMbRANDT bAliTAAN. The Unified Kasambahay, PDAF realignment and strength-

ening of policies against corruption were topics at the recent Balitaan sa Hotel Rembrandt.

(From Left) Wilson Fortaleza, spokesperson of Partidong Manggagawa said that we should be wary of some politicians agenda to realign the porkbarrel. Norman Cabrera the president of the Kapatiran party said the conspiracy among regulators and government key personnels should be stopped and monitored to neutralize corruption. Meanwhile, Atty. Allan Andrada, executive off icer of SSS explained how the unified registration system is being synchronized by several government agencies to assist members in their daily business operation with other establishments. Erick San Juan is forum host.

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BEN COLAYCO

Pioneer of Online Gaming

B

EN COLAYCO is a gaming man.

The founder of Level Up! Games, Colayco is recognized as a pioneer of the local online gaming industry—and if you are an online gamer then you would be defi nitely familiar with Ragnarok, the role-playing online game that practically boosted the business of internet cafes.

Level Up!—the company that brought Ragnarok to the Philippines—was originally run by Ben with the his father Nonoy a fi nance, investments and funds management expert who used to work in the foreign investments department of American International Group (AIG).

Opportunity

During a business trip to Korea, his father scouted the opportunities that online gaming had to offer. He met with his former AIG colleagues to explore the potential of online gaming here in the Philippines. He didn’t know anything about video games and online gaming but he knew that Filipinos are fond of gaming.

This prompted him to turn to his Ben who at that time was having second thoughts about pursuing an MBA degree.

When he graduated from high school, he decided to take up law.

He took up Political Science at New York University and after graduating, he decided to take up law proper. But his dad noticed that his heart was not really into law, so he was told to take a break from school and do whatever he wanted for a year and decide later if he wanted to become a lawyer.

Marketing

Ben followed his dad’s advice. He joined Grey Advertising and got his fi rst marketing experience. While in Grey, Ben learned how to come up with advertising campaigns for detergent brands. After a year, Ben lost interest in pursuing a law degree.

He changed his mind and got interested to pursue MBA instead, but his dad said he won’t pay for it and, instead encouraged Ben to go back to the Philippines and spearhead their online business project.

At the time Level Up! started, the network game Counterstrike was the hit online game. Basically, kids would go into gaming centers like internet cafes and play the game against other kids who were connected in a network. But their plan is to bring gaming to a whole new level, a level they called “MMOG” or Massively Multiplayer On-Line Games. The internet was growing and gaming was going towards that direction.

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