President Aquino running out of time

The top nine big business organizations in this country have sought for a clearer and well-defined energy program to assuage security of power supply and stability in electric rates from President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III. They are the top business organizations from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (PCCI), the Philippine Export Confederations (Philexport), the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries of the Philippines, the American Chamber of the Philippines (AMCHAM), the European Chamber of the Philippines and others who signed a position paper in the hope that it would address the power problems of this country.

Pardon me fellas if I’m going to rain on your parade. But until now you still don’t get it! Before the elections of 2010, the Cebu Business Club hosted the Presidentiables at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) in Mandaue City, which was packed to the brim with businessmen and all the Presidentiables were present for a short speech and a very frank Q & A so we could find out what stuff our Presidentiables were made of.

When it came to Presidential hopeful Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III he had nothing much to say, but tell the Cebu businessmen “My administration will be one of consultation.” Others like Manny Villar or Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. were very positive as they talked about giving Cebu more infrastructures so Cebu could grow faster. It was then that we realized that Sen. Aquino who was a non-performing Congressman and equally dull as a Senator had no vision to lead the Philippines to greater heights.

During the campaign, Sen. Aquino already promised to challenge the Catholic Church with the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill. This is why from day one I was against this President and boy was I right on the nail! Four years into his term, P-Noy has not given Cebu any infrastructure to hoot about… and yes, if Mindanao today is suffering from 10-hour blackouts, it could only be traced to the non-performance of his Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla, who in an act of rare delicadeza submitted his resignation to the President last December.

But as you all know, the President refused to accept Petilla’s resignation, which only proves that P-Noy cares more about his friends than the people of Mindanao. Now this non-performance has struck deep in the heart of the Luzon Grid when the National Grid Corp. (NGCP) announced that with a system capacity of 1,477 megawatts last Tuesday and a peak demand of 1,522 megawatts…this has caused power outages in some parts of Cebu due to near zero reserves.

With a near zero reserves for the Visayas Grid and a burning summer heat that has put the Angat Dam, Ambuklao Dam, Binga Dam, Magat Dam and Pantabangan Dam all experiencing below normal water levels, it means that the Luzon Grid would also be having rotating blackouts. With trouble happening in the Luzon Grid, suddenly those nine big business organizations have sought for a clear-cut energy program from the Aquino regime. When Mindanao suffered those 10-hour blackouts some months before, not a single business organization tried to help them. But now that the blackouts have threatened the Luzon Grid, these business organizations are now making an appeal to P-Noy. Businessmen like it or not are also uncaring!

Incidentally where is the Makati Business Club? I don’t see their name in that list? They were the first to support P-Noy and we can only second-guess that they still believe that P-Noy can turn things around. If you ask me… it is too late in the game for P-Noy to present any credible solution to the energy crisis that has made ours the most expensive power cost in Asia. In short, P-Noy has run out of time!

We can only trace our energy problems back to another Aquino presidency under then President Cory Aquino who cancelled the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which would have given the Luzon Grid the cheapest power in Asia. My heart sank when I learned that the sister plant that Westinghouse built for South Korea in Yongbyun, was still operating and giving Korea cheap power! Indeed, the problem in this country is that the business sector just trusts our politicians too much to solve things for them…even if they don’t have any damn idea how to solve our power problems.

So what good is that position paper signed by the nine big business organizations? Will it suddenly turn P-Noy into a miracle worker and solve our nation’s energy crisis? I think he won’t! But for as long as the same people are running the Energy Department under Sec. Petilla, don’t expect things to change. If those business groups want a real change, they must demand from P-Noy the resignations or the suspension of all those involved in the pork scam. A change in the government would usher a fresh hope that things could be better than what we have today under the watch of P-Noy who has wasted his four years in office doing nothing.

*      *      *

E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected].