Almendras' commitment

The business sector has expressed concern that President Aquino’s strong pitch for a shift to renewable energy sources may not be getting enough support from his own cabinet members.

It is also worried that the apparent reluctance on the part of Energy Secretary Rene Almendras to defend the Aquino policy – and the outright vocal opposition of another cabinet member – could affect the bid to free the country from too much reliance on the politics and volatility of imported fossil fuel and coal.

Almendras has acted quickly to dispel the impression. He told media that the energy department continues to support President Aquino’s renewable energy policy. The statement is important and timely, and is reassuring to the business community.

It comes at a time when serious doubts have been raised as to whether or not President Aquino could further push his planned major shift to renewable energy sources given a lack of support from his own cabinet members.

This is also a timely statement, coming in the heels of a statement by Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda that “the President is helpless to do anything about oil prices.” Almendras’ assurance shows that there is at least something that the President can and is willing to do to free the country from the stranglehold of imported fuel used to power most of our generating plants.

The hope is that Almendras would sustain his clear and unequivocal support for the Aquino policy. The business community knows he is one of the cabinet members held in high esteem by the Chief Executive.

By strongly supporting the President’s pro-renewable energy policy, the energy chief achieves two other things. First, further perk up the investment atmosphere in the country; and, second, demolish speculations that he is vulnerable to pressure from interests adversely affected by the Aquino energy policy.

More important, Almendras’ statement of support paves the way for an end to destructive and distractive debates and for the start of decisive actions that would address our need for reliable, clean and sustainable electric power supply for the country.

Self-sufficiency down the drain

In his second state-of-the-nation address, President Aquino proudly proclaimed that his administration will achieve self-sufficiency in rice and other staples by 2013.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala promises that by 2013, we will no longer import rice. He said that last summer, the country already achieved its “biggest rice harvest ever.” It’s a 7.4-0percent increase over last year, which sounds outstanding indeed, except that if we put his 2011 summer crop side by side with 2009, the marginal increase is minimal. In 2010, we had El Niño, and our rice crop dropped drastically compared to 2009. Enough rains came in the first quarter of 2011, and we had a good harvest.

In his SONA, PNoy he credited his government for building more irrigation canals, and helping farmers more. How this was achieved despite cutting back on infrastructure remains a puzzle.

But Pedring and Quiel came and now, all the supposed achievements in terms of record rice harvests are gone.

The sad reality is that the P-Noy government does not really have a cogent and doable food security program. At the bidding of the World Bank and its minions in P-Noy’s economic team, agriculture was thrown to the backseat. Because GMA and her agents are suspected of stealing fertilizer money, Alcala cancelled all subsidies for seeds and fertilizers. The farmer is left on his own.

Our government should review its plans to scuttle National Food Authority and to let the private sector do rice trading.  

Not so hidden agenda

Mic’s meteoric rise – From P521 per share last Monday, shares of Romero-led Mic Holdings Corp. were trading at P781.50 per share yesterday. In early August when port operator Michael Romero’s Sultan 900 Capital Inc. acquired 95.22 percent of Mic from Tonyboy Cojuangco’s Ventcap, Mic’s shares were at P104 per share. Romero bought the shares at P339 per share or 3.39 times their par value. The meteoric rise in Mic’s shares actually started last Sept. 29 when their prices rose from P154.50 to P231.60. On Sept. 30, it increased to P347.40, then to P521 per share last Oct. 3, and finally, to P781.50 yesterday, raising Mic’s market cap to P781.5 million. The Philippine Stock Exchange has asked Mic for any information that would explain for the unusual movement in the trading of shares, but no explanation could be offered. It’s just plain and simple market forces, Mikee Romero tells this writer. Mic promises to be a force to reckon with in the very near future, and that is something that the market will not let pass. From P100 million, the company is increasing its authorized capital to P2.6 billion. It has also added port operations and related businesses to its list of business activities, that used to be limited to a few planned IT-related ventures. Mic had virtually no operations in the past, and now, we have its young and brilliant owner cooking up a very ambitious but profitable roadmap for the company. If that isn’t explanation enough.

New acquisitions – Talks abound that Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) is interested in acquiring 40 percent of Asian Hospital from the Burmungrad Group of Thailand. When asked to comment about this, MPIC hospital group head Augie Palisoc neither denied nor confirmed, but told this writer that they are indeed in talks with a number of hospital owners, in various stages of discussions and some covered by very strict confidentiality agreements. There’s also talk that St. Luke’s Hospital, whose Quezon City branch is subsidizing the operations of its losing Fort Bonifacio branch, has asked MPIC to manage the latter, but MPIC chair Manuel Pangilinan is reportedly not interested.

Something missing – President Aquino and his team are very happy about their recent visit to Japan that brough home billions of dollars in investments. But are their Japanese counterparts equally happy? Before he left, the President was all set to issue an executive order adopting the Japanese standard ISDB-T as the Philippine’s official standard for digital television broadcasting, junking the other proposed European standard. But then, some of his economic managers belatedly thought about whether or not Filipino consumers are ready for it and advised him to give the shift from analog to digital TV transmission more thought. The Japanese government has offered official development assistance, technical assistance, investments in putting up a digital set-top box manufacturing company here and has been pushing ISDB-T for years now. The Philippine broadcasting industry is ready for the shift. In fact, ABS-CBN and a number of networks are already doing test-broadcasting. So what’s keeping Malacañang from issuing the EO?

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