Educators prefer Tessie

Doña Aurora Aquino, mother of Ninoy, Tessie and other Aquino luminaries who dot the national political landscape, was a teacher – a public school educator who opted to offer the prime of her life to helping mold the minds and hearts of hundreds of poor children in her native Tarlac.

Tessie Aquino-Oreta, youngest of the Aquino siblings and now campaigning to regain her Senate seat, remembers tagging along her mother as Doña Aurora fulfilled her mentorship obligation. It must have been the early exposure to the teacher’s life which spurred Tessie to take on the cause of education and educators during her stints as Congresswoman and Senator. And to pursue the cause with passion.

Tessie’s advocacy for the rights and welfare of teachers has not gone unappreciated. A recent survey by the Demographic Research and Development Foundation of the UP Population Institute last March 19 to April 3 revealed that 69 percent of the educators surveyed believe that Tessie Oreta is the candidate whom they think will work best for the interest of their sector, besting other candidates. And out of that universe, 97 percent said they will vote for Tessie this coming elections.

While Tessie got 69 percent, Senator Ed Angara garnered 13.4 percent. Sonia Roco, who is running as "Inang Guro", got only 10.3 percent; Senator Ping Lacson whose "E" in his "HOPE" platform stands for education registered 6.9 percent; while pack leader Loren Legarda got 4.9 percent.

At the end of the day, one has to admit that the education sector has remained Tessie Oreta territory despite her three years of political hibernation. Her teacher-mother, Doña Aurora, should be proud of her.

The preference for Tessie is understandable. Contrary to what her detractors say, Tessie actually worked hard for the education sector during her years both in Congress and the senate. Unfortunately, her accomplishments tend to be overshadowed by the political turmoil which marked the last few years of her service in the Senate. But the controversies were not enough to make teachers forget that Tessie had worked hard for them.

Power outage explained

Many continue to be bothered by the brownouts that inexplicably hit portions of Metro Manila and nearby Bulacan last Tuesday. The power outages came at a time when energy officials and power industry player are in agreement that available power supply far exceeds aggregate power demand.

National Power Corp. (Napocor) president Cyril del Callar explained that energy consumption reached 6,630 megawatts, 230MW more than the estimated demand. So why did NPC to anticipate the increased demand?

Those in the know say Napocor continues to base its forecasts on the unrealistic expectation that it’s antiquated and poorly maintained power plants, such as Calaca and Masinloc, will not break down as often as they periodically do.

They add that Napocor failed to provide for such contingencies by making needed fuel and coal supply steadily available to its power plants, manifesting poor procurement policies, planning and procedures.

Making matters worse, sources say Pagbilao, which operates as a baseload plant with a 700MW capacity, has been producing only 200MW due to low fuel supply and can only sustain full capacity operation until April 24.

Malaya, on the other hand, can only operate on full capacity for not more than two days due also to inadequate fuel supply.

Bauang, although available, had not been running because it had absolutely no supply of bunker fuel. And we learned that last Tuesday’s outages literally forced Napocor to rush the required 1.7 million liters of fuel and that Napocor had finally got it operating only 11 a.m. Thursday, April 19. The Calaca plant, with an actual capacity of 600MW has been producing only 100MW because its boiler tubes are dangerously leaking due to lack of maintenance which could result in the plant’s breakdown anytime.

But under the Energy Conversion Agreements between Napocor and its independent power producers or IPPs, ensuring fuel availability is Napocor’s obligation.

More than six years have passed since the enactment of the EPIRA, yet poor power consumers continue to suffer from Napocor’s inefficiency. Reason: only 11 percent of the Napocorgenerating assets that the law requires to be privatized have been successfully sold and transferred to private investors who possess both the technical and financial capabilities to operate these power plants in a more efficient and systematic manner.

Until NPC’s remaining generation assets are completely privatized, power consumers will have to brace themselves for periodic rotating brownouts due to the occasional lack of the most basic power plant components, such as spare parts or fuel source.

Until such time, the outlook in the Philippine power sector will, at best, remain occasionally dark.

Coincidence or not?

The chopper, said to belong to Piatco’s Jeffrey Cheng, that crashed right on top of a house in San Pablo, Laguna the other Saturday was found to be carrying campaign materials of Senatorial hopeful Loren Legarda.

Some observers can’t avoid but ask? Wasn’t it Loren who authored a resolution pushing for the investigation into the anomalies surrounding the construction of NAIA-3 by Piatco, a resolution later withdrawn in the middle of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee inquiry?

The members of the committee chaired by Senator Joker Arroyo were caught by surprise when Legarda suddenly withdrew from the inquiry which she herself had initiated. What could have led to Legarda’s decision to abandon the investigation had remained a question longing for an answer.

The investigation came up with names of government officials involved in the anomalous construction of the terminal including several ranking officials of the transportation department who allegedly received kickbacks from the Chengs.

In fact, the government legal panel handling the $425 million claim filed by Fraport AG, a member of the Piatco consortium, before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) revealed a $650,000 facilitation fee given to a former DOTC official coursed through a Hong Kong bank.

It will be recalled that the contract awarded by the government to Piatco was nullified by the Supreme Court due to changes in the bid documents which favored the Cheng consortium to the disadvantage of the government and the original project proponent.

Observes note nothing was heard from Loren position on the NAIA 3 issue since then. Until the chopper carrying her campaign materials crashed. Coincidence? Might be. But it would be good for Loren to clear this matter out before people start entertaining funny thoughts.

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