Election season has come too early

What is going on here? It seems that the 2004 election season has descended upon us a bit too early. It isn't just the assumption by Ate Glo of the chairmanship of Lakas that marks the start of the 2004 campaign season. Even weeks before, senators and congressmen were hotly competing for media mileage at the expense of the national treasury, in anticipation of the 2004 election.

Maybe it is a good sign that the contenders for national leadership positions are committed to use the ballot box and not the gun as the access route to power. Coup rumors stopped at about the same time politicians started feeling the election fever.

But this mood for political battle can be counterproductive. This means, we can expect the candidates or those who aspire to be candidates to put all good sense aside and act with the ballot in mind. It will be impossible to get any intelligent discussion of important public issues or have important matters of state attended to with the national interest in mind. Just look at the Senate. The usual leadership rigodon is on again. Instead of debating important legislative measures, they are clawing each other for top positions in the chamber.

Ate Glo realizes this problem of premature electioneering only too well. That is why she castigated her political handlers to stop talking about the elections and her supposed intention to run for a full six year term. She said, and rightly so, that she has more important business of state to attend to and she must make decisions based on what is good for the country rather than what is good for her election.

But her handlers find it impossible to keep their mouths shut. Maybe Ate Glo should now disown guys like Joey Rufino because all these premature talk about 2004 is not doing her any good. Guys like Joey who openly disobey very public orders from Ate Glo to shut up are political liabilities. They don't help boost Ate Glo's credibility. Once she is perceived to be really focused on 2004 this early, she can no longer get anything worthwhile done.

There is nothing wrong with doing backroom preparations for 2004. But the high public visibility of such efforts works against the President. It galvanizes the opposition to obstruct her projects that are deemed useful for her election. As such, the country must wait until 2004 before government can get anything done, or even started. Yet, we are now in a catch up mode with our neighbors. We cannot afford to wait for the winners of the 2004 contest to get important things done.

On the other hand, how sure are we that we will have an election in 2004? I don't mean there will be coup or Ate Glo will perpetuate herself in power ala Marcos. I mean, look at the Comelec and you will see that they are still busy fighting each other. The Comelec has not done the things they should do to implement the law mandating the modernization of our elections. Computerization takes time and before we know it, it is too late.

Right now, only Comelec should catch the election fever. All others, specially politicians now in power, must buckle down to work. There are still so many things they should accomplish before they have the right to face the people in the 2004 elections.

PPA and energy conservation

We received this e-mail from reader Ildefonso Maminta on the PPA and energy conservation.

The price of electricity will never go down for as long as the energy authorities remain in a time warp of the 70s when the concern was energy conservation. The financial reports of the NPC and their press releases all attribute NPC losses to the successful energy conservation program instituted by the government, i.e., penalizing electricity consumption.

It is only in the Philippines where rates go up in direct relation with one’s consumption of electricity. The result is to discourage increases in industrial production as costs will increase, thus negating economies of scale. This is why many industries left the country as they can only achieve economies of scale in Indonesia or Thailand where electricity rates are cheaper and could be decreased further by increased production, accompanied by increased electrical consumption.

This is why there will always be unutilized electricity from independent power producers, even if the financial fiasco of 1998 did not occur. Think about it.

You have a point. Come to think of it, it did feel a little weird when I saw that public service ad featuring Energy Secretary Vince Perez urging people to save electricity. That was in a newscast that just pointed out the reason the PPA is so high is because we have a large surplus in generation capacity. Really makes you wonder what is going on.

Tourism infrastructure

In my conversations with a number of in-bound tour agents, there seems to be an agreement in opinion that peace and order and inadequate infrastructure are the two basic reasons it is difficult to sell the country as a tourist destination. Those who overcome fears about peace and order are disappointed it takes so much time to get to anywhere interesting.

The closest place to Manila of interest of tourists is Pagsanjan. It takes over two hours to get there from hotels in Makati and even longer for those staying in Manila bayside hotels. If you have limited time in Manila, you will just end up with Fort Santiago and Intramuros.

The agents say in-bound airline seats do not pose a problem, noting that outside of peak seasons when Filipinos travel (summer and Christmas), more than enough seats are available. Also, airlines will add seats if there is demand. Open skies is not a critical factor nor is government ownership of the flag carrier. We need better roads, airports, public toilets, hotels and reliable power in our tourist destinations.

We also have to be competitive. Even before Terminal 3 opens, we must make sure Piatco does not charge exorbitant rates. That proposed $20 passenger terminal fee is out of this world. Considering also that a large number of airport users are OFWs who have already been soaked by POEA, OWWA and the recruiters, that atrocious airport fee is going to be the last straw for these modern day heroes.

As I mentioned last Monday, we also have to match Malaysia's no landing and no parking fee come-on for carriers to fly there. I wonder how fixing up those things will screw up the numbers in Piatco's business model?

Good news, bad news

Reader Chito Santos sent in this one.

"I have good news and bad news," the defense attorney told his client... "First the bad news. The blood test came back, and your DNA is an exact match with that found at the crime scene."

"Oh, no! cried the client. "What’s the good news?"

"Your cholesterol is only 140."

(Boo Chanco's e-mail is [email protected])