Cleansing

This is the right thing to do.

Bowing to the stark realization the PNP itself is tainted with criminal syndicates and corrupt officers, police chief Roland “Bato” de la Rosa dissolved the special anti-illegal drugs unit and put priority on cleansing the ranks ahead of pursuing the drugs war. True, crushing the drug cartels is a top national priority. But crushing the drug cartels without taking out the criminal syndicates within the police organization now appears to pose the greater hazard to the public.

The kidnapping and cold-blooded murder of a Korean businessman, the video documentation of an actual “tokhang-for-ransom” operation and the complaints from all over of people shaken down by corrupt policemen under the cover of the war on drugs give us enough reason to pause. The activities of criminal syndicates within the ranks of the PNP itself, probably involving senior officers, is a serious threat to public safety.

Before all these became known, we only feared the so-called “ninja” cops: policemen who recycled confiscated drugs back to the open market. Now, law-abiding citizens feel threatened by actual criminals in uniform. One’s home could be invaded, drugs could be planted and innocent people could be dragged out and held for ransom. In the worst case, the victim could be murdered even if ransom is paid.

Unless the police organization is cleansed, no one will guard us against the guardians. We are all vulnerable before this unspeakable peril.

No justice will be brought the murdered Korean who so loved our country if we merely identify and charge the police perpetrators of this dastardly crime. The PNP must be made so clean there could be reasonable expectation this sort of police-induced criminality will never happen again.

Cleaning up the PNP will not be easy. A strange corporate culture has been nurtured in this damaged institution, a subculture that is tolerant of misdemeanor and coupled with an institutional incapacity to ensure discipline in the ranks.

We suspected the police to be involved in liquidation operations and summary executions that made the “war” on drugs unduly bloody. Thousands of murders swept under the rug of “deaths under investigation” were probably the handiwork of criminal syndicates within the police force. The red-hot case of the murdered Korean national suggests as much.

Before this case, of which so much still has to be known, there was the killing of Albuera mayor Rolando Espinosa. He was shot right inside the provincial jail in what the police team involved says was an armed attempt to resist a search of the premises.

While cleaning up a seriously damaged police force may be more challenging than running after the drug cartels, it is a task long crying out to be done.

Disruptive

A self-styled “consumer” group emerged from the woodwork recently asking the Supreme Court to issue a restraining order against power supply agreements (PSAs) awarded to seven baseload power plants. Why this group targets only seven of over a hundred power supply agreements forged during the transition period provided by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira) provides us a glimpse into the vested interests animating this petition.

The seven power generators have an aggregate capacity of 3,551 MW of baseload capacity. That is enough to secure the power requirements of over five million consumers in the next three to five years. Any delay in the approval process will cause setbacks in the development of these power projects. The prospect will put in peril the country’s energy security and blunt all our efforts to achieve higher economic growth.

The consumer group Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas Inc. (ABP) claims to be protecting consumer interests. But if they put their petition in the proper context, they are actually putting consumer interest in jeopardy. That first interest of our consumers, especially the poor, is to have adequate power supply at the most reasonable price. That primary interest is not served by blocking the processing of application of power generators seeking to remedy the vulnerability of our current supply.

At present, the country is suffering from thin power reserves. We do not have enough power to support a higher economic growth rate. The tenuous supply leads to yellow and even red alerts when the ageing plants break down. When the Malampaya facility is shut down for regular maintenance work, the thin power reserves cause prices to kick up. This will happen next month, in fact, when Malampaya shuts down.

We have seen in the past that when the Malampaya facility shuts down for maintenance work, the price of electricity spikes. That translates into a higher power bill for poor consumers.

Supply uncertainty certainly discourages investors from come in. That translates into missed job opportunities that would have benefitted the poor more than anyone else.

Disrupting or impeding the processes that will lead to ample power supply and more competitive pricing will injure the best interest of Filipino consumers.

ABP, in its filing before the Supreme Court argues that the ERC, by extending the deadline for applications for PSAs allowed such agreements to be entered into without a competitive selection process. That argument proceeds from faulty premises. The power distributors, when they entered into PSAs with generator companies did undertake due diligence to ensure they will be getting the cheapest power providers. The records show that. Distributors do not benefit from inflating the cost of power.

ABP should have consulted the record of hard negotiations between power generating companies and power distributors. The petition before the Court indicates the petitioners did not do that.