Today, a full page ad came out (see above) answering a question posed in this Plurk thread, about the shortage in some places, of LPG. The whole question -why isn’t there an adequate supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas?- itself is the sort of thing that’s been bothering me for some time now, going back to the questions raised when the government had to make a pretty large adjustment to its GDP figures (the Financial Times, it seems, lodged an inquiry with the government over the 2% adjustment at the time, which exceeded the adjustments governments “normally” make to to their figures).
Think about it. Basically, you have to spend 100,000 Pesos (more or less the cost of a full-page newspaper ad), to tell the government that it lacks data, and to ask the government to mount an investigation into the operations of the market, because no one, rich or poor, can answer why consumers can’t find LPG. Raul Concepcion seems to think it’s worth spending hundreds of thousands of Pesos to make such an appeal. Obviously consumers have been grumbling about the shortage in LPG supplies for months; some (see the Plurk linked to above) have families that have had to use electric ranges; think of commercial establishments that require cooking gas and the family joins the business consumer in… impotence. So you need an industrialist to take it upon himself to rattle the cages of the powers-that-be.
The result of course, as Concepcion put it in his ad, is “public doubt and confusion” concerning what on earth is going on:
Since December and into the New Year, consumers particularly housewives have been complaining about the scarcity of LPG. While the major suppliers of LPG, particularly Petron and Shell, have acknowledged the increased consumption of LPG especially during the holiday season, they have nonetheless been assuring the public of adequate supply.
The LP Marketers Association, through its president Arnel Ty, has admitted that retailers have started to increase prices due to the “lack of supply.” DOE Secretary Angelo Reyes meantime has brushed aside reports of queuing of 30 to 50 delivery trucks in front of Petron and Liquigaz plants as “normal.”
In the ad, Concepcion then asked the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice to “immediately exercise their respective regulatory powers” by publicly disclosing the total capacities for LPG of the various suppliers Petron, Shell, Liquigaz, Total, Petronas, & Pryce Gas -including the value and volume of their inventories. (His secondary purpose is to point out that the oil companies should reduce their pump prices of gasoline by 5.50 Pesos and 4.50 Pesos for Diesel by January 23; my own question is perhaps there is collusion between the oil companies and the government to keep oil prices a bit high, so as to ensure profits for the oil companies and additional tax revenues for the state?).
But my point is that it may be reasonable to propose that government really lacks the information being asked of it by consumer advocates; that even if the data is there, it may not be collected in a timely manner; and that even if collected, may actually be beyond the competence of officialdom to use in a timely and effective manner, whether in terms of collections, regulation, or policy-making.
Now this is just a hunch, but a hunch getting stronger all the time. It just seems to me that reliable information is beyond the grasp of officialdom, and that even if you grant that most officials are well-meaning, their good intentions are useless because it’s all basically bumbling in the dark.
The bumbling and the darkness being a direct result of slipshod data gathering, antiquated record keeping, and sloppiness among officials.
Take the concern expressed by techies as a consequence of suggesting a proposed new National Telecommunications Memorandum Circular. Here’s the news item on the proposed circular: NTC issues draft circulars on content development, applications and ensuring access to limited band.
Bloggers Kiven and Mike Abundo among others, called attention to the “extremely broad” definition of online content in the draft. While the NTC seems pretty clear that its objective is more concerned with enabling content providers to increase their profits, concerned bloggers point out that in the hands of unscrupulous or simply idiotic officals, the draft could conceivably provide a license for extortion.
Over at Filipino Voices, Cocoy approaches the proposal from a broader perspective:
NO more added layer of REGULATION. Government should know the Importance of Private Enterprise in Economic and Social Development.
Seriously.
It just fraks the market up. The market is doing just fine without government poking its nose into something, it clearly has no understanding or interest in learning the culture and norms.
To sort things out, some bloggers decided to attend the public hearing. What ended up happening was that a scheduled public hearing was unceremoniously canceled by the NTC.
Colleague John Nery, over at the new home of his blog, Newsstand, yesterday observed that this passage from Barak Obama’s inaugural address:
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
Might give the present dispensation the creeps:
The… passage… must have been aimed at the Putins and Mugabes, but I won’t be surprised if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will find herself perceived (by her critics and perhaps by others too) as being in the subset of the admonished.
Well, not just by her critics but perhaps by the Palace, too. For sure enough, the Palace began to spin-a-win.
This gem from the Executive Secretary:
“First of all, our President is ahead of Obama and probably, I would think that if there’s anything to be learned, it should be President Obama learning from President Arroyo. And wouldn’t we be proud to say that the Philippines continues to be an ‘island of calm’ because of the present crunches?” he said, when asked by media what lesson Arroyo could learn from Obama.
He said the President could even be a model or the “proper conduct under pressure.”
Followed by this one, from Lorelie Fajardo (colleague John Nery’s favorite official, incidentally!):
The President finds President Obama’s inaugural address profoundly moving and inspiring. His words deeply resonate with the President’s dream for the nation and the world — to celebrate and welcome hope, to allow peace and cooperation to reign and to triumph over the economic and diplomatic challenges that we face.
We are two nations blessed with two leaders bound by the same vision and ideology.
The real problems of the administration are twofold.
First, its inability to dispel the rumor that the President and her husband are in some sort of money-laundering trouble Stateside.
Second, that the new dispensation, when it finally gets around to noticing the Philippines, won’t be friendly towards the current regime, because of the corresponding general, creeping, disrepute into which the country is sinking, in terms of perceptions of official corruption.
The way that Indian company blew up because of the World Bank’s blacklisting has its domestic counterpart here with allegations of the World Bank’s findings concerning corruption by local contractors.
But more on this point, tomorrow.
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2 Feedbacks on "Bumbling in the dark"
victor manalac
it would be an exaggeration , or unfair, to place GMA in the category of a mugabe or a putin. we may have our own contribution of error and terror against dissent or our own mode of corruption, but we certainly have not reached near the degree of what mugabe’s country is in.
however, our country does reigns in corruption ratings and we must surely and really have a clever leader to balance efforts to keep our economy partly shielded from the global turndowns.
we can never say she is straight, or her husband to be not as bad as what most people perceive him to be. we can balance our perceptions in somewhat these terms : they play with the evil people that surround them yet keeping in mind that a certain level of service has to be delivered lest the people become desperate enough to do them in as they did marcos and erap.
i remember a wealthy man quoted as saying : “to be rich you have to shake the hands of the devil”. mugabe surely not only shook the devil’s hand. he became the devil himself. the president and her husband would be well advised to maintain whatever balancing act they have been doing, but be reminded that:
God wants us all to be on His side, and not have one foot on His side of the line while keeping the other foot on the other side. and this is where perhaps the moral decadence began, and that which CJ Puno has based his suggestion from that our country takes - that road of moral uprightness , and that alone. it would take a lot of Faith and much pain to form a moral force, but it will not be impossible for our leadership to make that theme their guiding northpole, and not tactical compromises.
greed is what is bringing down the economic might of america . greed is what made scandalous deals and brought moral decadence in our country. unless this rotting core is healed there cannot be a continuous economic growth nor a an improving (in FVR’s words ) “quality of life”.
Romeo Tena
Mga kababayan, gising!!! Sa lahat ng sulok ng mundo, economic stimulus ang buzzword. Bakit showbiz pa rin sa atin?
Ayon na rin sa ating mga eksperto, mukhang hindi kailangan ng rescue package ang ating ekonomya pero aminado tayo lahat na ang growth rate ng Pilipinas ay pabagsak sa mga susunod na buwan at taon dahil sa worldwide recession na umiiral ngayon.
Ano ba ang ating magagawa para sa ikau-unlad ng ating economy? Eto, ang interest rate sa labas ng bansa ay malapit na sa zero. Ito na ang pinaka-matipid optimum na pagkakataon ng ating bansa na mangilak ng puhunan para isa-ayos ang ating mga infrastructura tulad ng mga lansangan, transportasyon, edukasyon, komunikasyon, sanidad, patubig at iba pang mga serbisyo publiko.
Ang lahat ng iyan ay magbibigay trabaho sa marami nating mamamayan sa lalong madaling panahon at kaalinsabay nito, ang ating bansa ay magiging handa sa nalalapit na pagbangon ng world economy in terms of tourism (let’s fix our roads, bridges and septic lines for ourselves and our tourists), well educated manpower provision, outsourcing industry, manufacturing sector.
Ang kailangan lamang natin ay transparent na pagpapatakbo sa mga proyektong ito upang maiwasan ang talamak na graft at corruption sa lahat ng antas ng implementasyon. We can even ask the loan provider for an optional transparent administration of the whole agreement. Let us face it, if my neighbor have got a better lawn than mine, I am more than willing for him to give me a tip or two on how to improve my own.
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