OFW Filipino Heroes

Monday, December 23, 2013

UK Huffingtonpost said: Privatization of Philippine controlled Corporation is a big Mistake, Empowering Oligarchic to control the people

 

If Privatization for government owned corporations in the western countries is highly recommended, in the Philippines its opposite according to the analysis of the western experts.

 

Avail the ($4) or ₱177 per month FAST hosting service, 1 website unlimited bandwidth + 100 mailbox & unlimited email forwarding FREE at SOMOSOTECH  Web hosting service [ www.somosotech.com ] or email us:  info @ somosotech.com

 

Only few oligarchic are controlling the several millions of Philippine Citizen and even doing some collusion to keep rising their gains and pushing the people into a deep poverty.

 

Philippines is divided sharply into 2 type of people; the richest and the poorest. If this is not familiar by the ordinary citizens, the world is watching the Philippines and is openly heard part of usual discussion by the OECD countries' elites talking about the 2 types of people in the Philippines – the richest and the poorest.

 

I (Prince Dan We) a contributor of this site, a lumad (aborigine) of the Southern Philippines recently visited Paris and met several French people and other citizens from 13 countries in a special gathering called "Economist Friends of Jeane in Paris" where we started the meeting by a simple introduction.

 

My name was lastly called and without my knowledge that my introduction was already planned by the organizer "Jeane" to be the highlight of an upfront discussion of our gathering which was told to me later after the gathering. After my introduction Jean stand up and shared something he learned about his recent visit in the Philippines, "the Philippines is a very beautiful country". He said.. but the Philippines have only 2 types of people.. The "poorest" which is the majority and the "richest" which are only few and mostly migrants to the Philippines; how true is my findings representative from the Philippines? He was pointing towards me.

 

I replied, no its not 2 but 3. The richest, the poorest and the rising middle class. But he insisted that based on their research, Philippine middle class are still remained at the bracket of the poorest based on income level and the rising middle class is still very few compare to the poorest and the richest.

 

The poorest and the sizable number of middle class are always the victims of any economic sabotage instigated by the oligarchic of some countries like what had happened in the Philippines which should serve as our lesson, Jean said.

 

Our gathering's purpose was not intended to offend anyone but to make the other participants realized that "PROS" and 'CONS" of the systems which are applicable or not applicable to a certain countries.  Like for example the Privatization in the Philippines.  "We are the future leaders of our respective countries and we must know cases like this so we could protect the interest of the poor and the minorities of our respective countries", Jeane added.

 

The Philippines is our window for an advance preparation how to deal with social issues, weakness vs resiliency, economic issues and political issues, he added.

 

Back to the Philippines, the issue of collusion by the electric company owners resulting the electric crisis is on peak a month before Meralco's plan for an immediate hike of power price which could be more expensive than Japan and the most expensive power rate in entire Asia.

 

This issue makes me realized that other countries are watching the Philippines while we are blind about it.

 

PROMO: ₱50 per month FAST web hosting service?  1 website + 10 Free email + unlimited forwarding - No Cpanel Visit SOMOSOTECH at [ www.somosotech.com ] We will refund within 30 days if you are not satisfied the Speed we offered . Email us for more info: info @ somosotech.com

 

Philippines Electricity Crisis: How Regulatory Capture Undermines Emerging Markets

 

In its latest issue, Foreign Affairs magazine, which identified the Philippines as among the six up-and-coming countries in the 21st century, will certainly help enhance the Aquino administration's self-confidence in its macroeconomic policy -- and somehow discredit the naysayers, who have (mistakenly) dismissed the Philippine economy as a bubble in disguise.

 

Decoupling from the whimpering BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economies, Foreign Affairs editors Gideon Rose and Jonathan Tepperman have focused on emerging markets such as the Philippines, for its "combination of size, recent performance and economic potential" as well as emergence as an "outsourcing powerhouse" under the "the clean and committed stewardship" of a new administration. In a separate essay, Karen Brooks, who looked at the economic potentials of Indonesia and the Philippines as the next tiger economies, praised the Aquino administration for its "bold leadership", which unlike Indonesia's wavering government "has taken real steps to address some of its challenges." She identified two key factors, which have supposedly made the Philippines a leading contender among emerging markets; first, improvements in transparency and efficiency in fiscal spending and tax administration, and second, the Aquino administration's huge reservoir of political capital, which could be translated into swift and decisive reforms in the coming years.

 

While Brooks thoughtfully surveys a wide range of challenges bedeviling the Philippine economy, the above analysis, however, overlooks the extent to which recent reforms have not cut deep enough. And there is a failure to even mention the combined impact of the recent corruption scandals and the aftermath of the Yolanda (Haiyan) crisis on the Aquino administration's popularity, which has taken a hit in recent months.

 

What we see today in the Philippines is more a country that has come to confront its internal demons than an emerging market firmly placed on an inexorable tiger road. Nothing underscores this complex picture more than the latest uproar over an alleged collusion among power-generating companies to introduce a further hike in electricity prices. To put things into perspective, the Philippines already has Asia's most expensive electricity rates, even higher than post-Fukushima Japan. Such prohibitive rates have not only hurt ordinary consumers, but have also served as among the strongest disincentives against manufacturing investments in the country.

 

But there is a deeper lesson to draw from the Philippines' power-generation predicament. Contrary to the conventional analysis forwarded by most analysts, including Karen Brooks, what the Philippines needs the most is not more privatization and economic liberalization per se -- which have actually exacerbated rather than ameliorated the country's structural economic weaknesses since the 1990s -- but instead a stronger state that (a) can bust oligarchic collusion, and (b) protect the interest of the consumers and productive sectors of the economy. And we won't have a dramatic turnabout in the Philippines' economic fortunes unless the Aquino administration and its successors fully internalize the indispensable role of the state, which ranges from ensuring the rule of law to protecting strategic sectors of the economy against special interest, even in an era of economic globalization.

 

Privatization and Regulatory Capture

 

Ironically, the power crisis in the Philippines, which promises to retard the country's growth trajectory and its aspirations for industrial development, is not a product of excessive state intervention and public mismanagement. Instead, it is a classic example of how economic liberalization -- under the auspices of a corrupt political system and in the absence of a competitive private sector -- has handed the key sectors of the economy to a handful of oligarchs, which have prioritized profits over capacity-building and accessibility. And yet, we are still waiting for a commensurate response by the Aquino administration to such brazen strangulation of Philippines' manufacturing potentials, which ultimately rely on, among other things, the affordable availability of power and energy resources.

 

In essence, there is nothing wrong with having a competitive economy where dynamic entrepreneurs are allowed to engage in and spur a "creative destruction" of innovation to increase economic productivity for the benefit of the consumers and the overall economy. And John Maynard Keynes, who is widely recognized as the brains behind post-war, state-led capitalism in the Western world, would have never supported the monstrosity of ineffectual and corrupt state-controlled enterprises, which dominated large portions of the developing world for much of the post-colonial era. But what followers of Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman have overlooked are the perils of privatization in under-developed markets, where you have a tiny, oligarchic private sector, which lacks capital, expertise, and -- above all -- appreciation for collective interest, but has unshakable grip on the the political economy.

 

Moreover, as I argue in my forthcoming book How Capitalism Failed the Arab World, the key problem with the privatization process in the developing world is its inherent vulnerability to regulatory capture -- the process by which major businesses and special interests co-opt a weak, post-transition state in order to control profitable, strategic enterprises, which were previously held by the government.

 

Similar to most other developing countries, the Philippines engaged in a wide-ranging process of economic liberalization in the 1990s, which saw the massive expansion in the private ownership as well as operation of key economic sectors such as water, infrastructure and electricity. It was hailed as a natural remedy to decades-long crony capitalism under the former Marcos regime. As far as power-generation is concerned, the transition to a market-economy culminated in the passage of Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act, better known as EPIRA, in 2001.

 

This was landmark legislation, which promised to lower electricity costs, expand the country's capacity for energy production, and enhance the efficiency of its transmission by supplanting the Rate of Return on Base (RORB) system with a Performance-Based Regulation (PBR) regime. In reality, however, the increasingly privatized electricity sector would be dominated by the country's leading business families, which turned electricity production into one of the most profitable businesses in the country -- at the expense of the overall economy and public welfare.

 

Public Outrage

 

Recent months have seen increasing mobilization by the Philippine middle classes against corruption in state institutions. So when they learned that Manila Electric Company (Meralco) was going to introduce an unprecedented electricity rate hike in three trenches beginning in 2014, there was an immediate expression of outrage, prompting the Aquino administration to launch an investigation on the matter.

 

When the Energy Regulatory Commission's (ERC) chief Zenaida Cruz-Ducut, who oversaw the approval of Meralco's request for rate increases, resigned, suspicions of bureaucratic capture intensified. After all, Ducat, a former member of the Philippine Congress, is implicated in the alleged embezzlement of Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), and was appointed to the ERC by the previous Arroyo administration, which is also facing charges of corruption and public mismanagement.

 

Soon, progressive legislators such as Walden Bello and Ibarra Gutierrez asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate not only Meralco, but also a whole host of power companies over "possible violations of laws prohibiting cartelization, monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade as defined in competition laws." Specifically, the power producers are being accused of "staging" production shortages, which in turn prompted expensive purchases of emergency supply, to justify a sharp price hike. The Department of Energy (DOE), which has also expressed its suspicions of a possible collusion, is undertaking a separate investigation on the issue.

 

So far, public pressure seems to have partially succeeded: The ERC has been forced to ask Meralco to hold-off any price hike by January 2014. Still, it is far from clear whether there will be any definitive resolution of this particular crisis, namely the revision or abrogation of the EPIRA law, given how a stream of corruption-related investigations has inundated the Aquino administration.

 

PROMO: ₱50 per month FAST web hosting service?  10 Free email + unlimited forwarding - No Cpanel Visit SOMOSOTECH at [ www.somosotech.com ] We will refund within 30 days if you are not satisfied the Speed we offered . Email us for more info: info @ somosotech.com

 

Overall, what is clear is that the Philippines is paying the price for decades of mindless privatization, which has done more to reinforce the oligarchic hold on the Philippine economy rather than unleash the dynamic energies of the private sector. Perhaps what the Philippines needs more than ever is a simultaneous empowerment of its state institutions as well as the new emerging entrepreneurial class, which has been hammered by oligopolistic businesses and lack of an independent, enabling regulatory regime. In short, what the Philippines yearns for is a more "effective" state and more "competitive" market at the same time. With report from the Huffingtonpost - United Kingdom

DOTC awards ₱1.3 Billion 32 year old NAIA 1 rehab to DMCI, gives Dec. 1, 2014 deadline for APEC 2015

Proposed NAIA renovation design by Kenneth Cobonpue

 

  • 1.299 Billion NAIA 1 rehab contract covers structural refitting and the improvement of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection facilities and architectural works - DMCI
  • 34.492 Million to oversee the project, NAIA 1 rehab construction management and supervision - TCGI Engineers
  • 500 Million of the allotted funds for the NAIA 1 rehab project was earmarked for structural and aesthetic work - "The group of Cobunpue, Layug, and Pineda"
  • 300 Million construction of a rapid exit to ease runway congestion and minimize delays of incoming or outgoing flights.
  • 20 Million for the repair and rehabilitation of airport 72 restrooms
 

To follow projects:

  • The South Metro Manila Skyway Project (Stage 2);
  • LRT Line 1 North Extension Project;
  • The Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Toll Expressway (TPLEX)
  • The Metro Rail Transit Line 7

 

The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) chose listed construction heavyweight D.M. Consunji, Inc. on Monday to rehabilitate the 32-year-old Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, the country's main air travel gateway to the rest of the world.

 

DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said DMCI must complete the project by December 1, 2014—just before the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) senior officials' and high-level meetings, which the Philippines will host.

 

Avail the ($4) or ₱177 per month FAST hosting service, 1 website unlimited bandwidth + 100 mailbox & unlimited email forwarding FREE at SOMOSOTECH  Web hosting service [ www.somosotech.com ] or email us:  info @ somosotech.com

 

"We will try our best to complete it, we are really behind but that is our target. This is long overdue and hopefully it will be completed as scheduled," Abaya said.

 

NAIA 1 has so far had 13,848 arriving flights (January to September) and welcomed 3.069 million people (January – September), while it sent off 13,843 flights and 3.325 million departing passengers.

 

The terminal was originally designed to handle only 4.5 million people in a year, but the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said on its website that "improvements" made over the years "increased its capacity to 6 million passengers yearly."

 

The MIAA also said, "International passenger traffic in 2012 increased by 3.5% compared to 2011, from 7,831,099 to 8,105,782 and international flights likewise increased by 3.14% from 37,964 to 39,157."

 

Terminal 1 has 16 gates, 84 check-in counters and 22 immigration stations to service "all international flights coming into Manila, except for those operated by Cebu Pacific, Air Philippines, Philippine Airlines and All Nippon Air."

 

Secretary Abaya made the NAIA 1 contract award to DMCI public during the inauguration of three Philippine National Railway stations, which the same firm undertook and completed.

 

Highly-anticipated and much-scrutinized, the NAIA 1 rehab contract is worth 1.299 billion and covers structural refitting and the improvement of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection facilities and architectural works.

 

The contract does involve the operation and maintenance of the oldest and most congested international airport.

 

The Ninoy Aquino Int'l Airport Terminal 1 in Pasay City has been voted the worst airport in Asia for 2012 and in the world for 2013 by the readers of online travel site 'The Guide to Sleeping in Airports.  Danny Pata


To oversee the project, engineering firm TCGI Engineers was also awarded on Monday the separate contract for the NAIA 1 rehab construction management and supervision - a 34.492 million deal.

 

Abaya said the December 1, 2014 deadline comes from the organizing committee of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

 

The award comes just days after the fatal shooting at NAIA Terminal 3 of four persons, including the mayor of a town in the province of Zamboanga del Sur, of Western Mindanao.

 

Only last October, "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports", a travel website, said NAIA 1 was the worst airport in terms of "comfort, amenities and overall experience."

 

To partly address the issues adverse reviews of the airport raised, the Cobonpue, Layug and Pineda group had volunteered months ago to redesign the airport terminal for free.

 

"The group of Cobunpue, Layug, and Pineda are on board," DOTC Secretary Abaya said.

 

Some 500 million of the allotted funds for the NAIA 1 rehab project was earmarked for structural and aesthetic work.

 

The construction of a rapid exit taxiway could cost 300 million, though it would ease runway congestion and minimize delays of incoming or outgoing flights.

 

For the repair and rehabilitation of 72 restrooms, some 20 million is allocated.

 

PROMO: ₱50 per month FAST web hosting service?  1 website + 10 Free email + unlimited forwarding - No Cpanel Visit SOMOSOTECH at [ www.somosotech.com ] We will refund within 30 days if you are not satisfied the Speed we offered . Email us for more info: info @ somosotech.com

 

DMCI was also awarded the contracts for building other major infrastructure projects of the administration of President Benigno Aquino III. Among these projects are: - ELR/DVM, GMA News

LEARN FOREX TRADING AND GET RICH

Investment Recommendation: Bitcoin Investments

Live trading with Bitcoin through ETORO Trading platform would allow you to grow your $100 to $1,000 Dollars or more in just a day. Just learn how to trade and enjoy the windfall of profits. Take note, Bitcoin is more expensive than Gold now.


Where to buy Bitcoins?

For Philippine customers: You could buy Bitcoin Online at Coins.ph
For outside the Philippines customers  may buy Bitcoins online at Coinbase.com