Congress Floats the Idea of Granting the President Statutory Emergency Powers to Deal with the Impending Blackouts as Threatened by Meralco

This is the problem when you have a Congress of part-time lawmakers (could mean partly capable of performing one’s lawmaking functions), and full-time “self-interest.” The grant of such emergency powers, by law, as allowed in the Constitution, presupposes the existence of a sudden and extraordinary event that the state or its instrumentalities could not have prepared for, thus necessitating the exercise by the chief executive, again through Congressional grant, of such enormous powers. Such sudden and extraordinary events do not exist in the present situation.

Perennial Congressional Ineptitude.

The predicament we are in now –staggering power rates– is brought about by its (Congress) own perennial ineptitude, sore foresight, and wanton neglect. Now, it wants to administer a shortcut cure to its years of dereliction by granting the president emergency powers. Again, as I have pointed out in the past, the quality of Congressional occupants has terribly deteriorated.

This trouble started when it liberalized the power industry through Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), where a power company could operate both distribution and generation business, as is the case in Meralco, and its power generation companies. This law has either inordinate design deliberately sold to beneficiary companies, or its authors simply had poor concept of anti-trust law. Clearly, with such setup allowed, price-fixing among interrelated players, otherwise disallowed, has become legal.

You can’t mistake the wood for the trees.

Malampaya scheduled its maintenance shutdown, as it always does, the other power generating companies (related with distributor Meralco and other power outfits trading on spot market [WESM]), which were supposed to take up the slack, coincided their own maintenance shutdown, forcing Meralco to buy at a higher price from WESM due to this schemed artificial supply situation. That is collusion.

The State has shot itself in the foot.

That is the very situation that led to the quandary the State finds itself in now, and the consuming public threatened with obscene power prices –only temporarily relieved by Supreme Court’s Temporary Restraining Order (TRO).

Yolanda has Got the Best of Me???

It’s been close to two months now since my last post (except for one from the office). Yolanda has immobilized and silenced this blog, but I have gone to the thick of efforts (and I am glad) to bring help to the places devastated by the strongest typhoon that has hit land in the country –also touted as the strongest weather disturbance ever recorded.

We, in the office, succeeded in persuading the management to forgo an otherwise lavish Christmas party –a much toned down event was replaced– and donate the amount allotted to it to relief goods for the victims. I joined my office colleagues in volunteering at the Villamor Air Base where my backbreaking experiences as a young boy in Calbayog came handy –we used to carry sacks of sands from shore to construction sites for like 75 centavos per “lata” (big tin container of assorted biscuits), and gather firewood from deep in the woods, among others. I carried some twenty sacks containing varied goods from stacks outside and into a gym, which served as warehouse, and from the gym to waiting military trucks -until I felt like I would need some help walking.

I have joined all sorts of fund drive to get something across to the needy.

Honestly, I felt like I needed some pain to relieve the guilt from just watching the hapless victims in such a desperate situation –while we go about our convenient lives. I could sense the indescribable anguish in their faces.

I could not thank God enough, and I continue to dread the thought of what could have happened if Yolanda did not, in the last minutes, change course and plowed through Calbayog City, which is literally just a stone’s throw away from the sea. Anyone who’s traveled by land from Luzon to Leyte would have passed by coastal Calbayog City, and know what I am saying. For most of the stretch of Maharlika Highway traversing the city, only its road separate the city and the sea.

Now, I think the people in coastal towns and cities have since completely reconsidered their view of that once prized “house by the sea” dream. It’s like now you have to see to it that from where you live, you have a clear pass through higher grounds, in case anything like this threatens your locality. This certainly will have implication on property insurance premiums and coverages.

Behind all the grim prospects in the face of this enormous tragedy, a silver lining lies. The government and organizations involved in the task of rebuilding Tacloban City and all the other affected places must make an  opportunity out of this unspeakable tragedy, and inspire the whole country if not the world. The opportunity is to build a city that complies with all the environmental demands of a safe and sustainable metropolis. The government has long complained that the reason it could not implement the measures that are even mandated by law, like mandatory sewerage, is because these houses and establishments are already in place, and for some logistical and practical considerations compliance is either prohibitively costly, or unwise.

Now we have clean slate status. From the ruins, raise a city that will obliterate the horrible memory of Yolanda and showcase the resilience of Waray and Leytenos.