WHY does Mr. Winston Garcia insist on representing the Government Service Insurance System in his fight with the Lopezes?
Does he really think that just because of his position in the GSIS, he represents all government employees? Has he tried to get their opinion? He is gambling with these employees’ future. The pension fund is not his alone. He is just its caretaker.
He will soon be out of office as soon as his bosses in Malacañang are either booted out or their terms expire. What will he do then? In my opinion, Mr Garcia might be diverting attention from his management of the pension fund altogether. His strategy seems to be to go after his neighbor’s trash so that his own trash won’t be looked at.
The Senate should start looking at the management of the pension fund. I’m not saying they’ll find anything there, but it’s worth it to take a cursory look at how it’s being managed being that it affects all past, present, and future government employees. Look at how the money is being invested, look at the balance sheets. It’s only fair we take a look at Mr Garcia’s backyard as well, not just the Lopezes. I’ll bet there are unwanted weeds and trash in his backyard that’ll need cleaning up or may lead to the eviction of its occupants.
– Bong Dignadice, Fontana, California (via e-mail)
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August 15th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Hindi pa pala tapos itong thread na to. Paulit-ulit lang ang tanong, paulit-ulit din ang sagot kaya walang maresolve.
To settle some issues once and for all:
1. Systems loss was allowed by the framers of the EPIRA law. Short-sightedness brought us this problem. No one listened to us back then when we were opposing it. Now even Gloria’s fans are putting the blame on Meralco when they were the ones who crafted the law. They now even call for class suits. Stupidity at its worst!
2. EVAT on systems loss is more stupid. The “VA” in “EVAT” stands for value-added, why then should you tax a “Loss”? Of course, like thieves in the night, it’s the morons of congress who railroaded EVAT.
3. The motives of Garcia are impure. His family owns interests in Aboitiz-owned VECO in Cebu and are direct competitors of Meralco in the asset disposal of Napocor. His proposal to break-up Meralco’s franchise gave him away. If you look at the auctions of PSALM, it was either Lopez or Aboitiz who were awarded the plants. Without Meralco, who would have benefited? It doesn’t take rocket science to know that.
4. Meralco has 2 Natural Gas Plants, and one bunker-fed. But The price of NatGas has been indexed with Petroleum. Instead of running plants on cheaper fuel from an indigenous source, we still pay as if we are using Saudi Oil. Further, Government levies 25% royalties for this natural treasure. Not to mention, EVAT is added once the bill is passed to us poor consumers.
Who is therefore more greedy, Meralco or government?
5. The competitive price of power WORLDWIDE is only US 7 cents/kWhr, or about P3.15. How much is Napocor charging Meralco?
6. ALL POWER PLANTS constructed under the BOT scheme in Ramos’ watch are collecting Take-or-pay of half the total amount it passes to Meralco. Everybody, including Meralco is paying double for every kilowatthout capacity of a plant. Even if it is undergoing maintenance repair or when off-grid! Again this is the handiwork of Congress, which gave Ramos unlimited emergency powers. Is Meralco at fault or government?
Some people here quote Villafuerte who has said P19B was passed by the non-performing (yet) Lopez plants as Take-or-pay when in fact more than a HUNDRED BILLION was passed by Napocor’s IPPs since 1993.
Didn’t you notice it was a forest when you were looking at a tree?
7. Congress can yet redeem itself by correcting its past mistakes. But what has it done? What is it doing? Posturing for charter change to solve the Muslim conflict no one among them really wants to end?
If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress?
August 12th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Hamak,
Ang topic kasi natin eh laban nina Winston Garcia at Meralco, sa KURYENTE.
Kampi ako kay Garcia sa sinasabi niyang pababain ang kuryente na binebenta ng Meralco. Kung pambobola man yun, valid sa akin as Meralco consumer ang pinaglalaban ni Garcia.
Kung GSIS ang topic natin, babatikusin ko si Garcia sa paglustay ng pondo ng ahensya at sa mga delays sa claim ng mga GSIS members tapos eh malalaman na lang natin sa balita na bumili siya ng hindi kailangan ng ahensya.
Hindi po kasi ako taong-gobyerno kaya di malinaw sa akin ang laban ng mga members ng GSIS.
Nagtataka lang ako kung bakit pilit na isinisingit ang GSIS issue sa laban sa pagbaba ng singil sa kuryente ng Meralco.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Jang Jang, Buti ka pa Meralco lang problema mo kaming mga Empleyado ng Gobyerno eh dugo at pawis ang ninanakaw sa amin ng iniidolo mo. di ba kaswapangan ang ginagawa ng idolo mo. katulad nka rin ng spokeswoman niyang si elampaso o\\ elamparo na yak yak ng yak yak wala namang substance ang sinasabi.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 am
fanatic,
thanks for your feedback.
What bugs me is the fact that the Lopez run Meralco is buying from its own/sister IPPs which sells at a much higher rate.
Yes Napocor had so many things to answer to the public but they are claiming that they are selling electricity lower than these privately owned IPPs by the Lopezes.
I believe just like Napocor, Meralco had many hidden issues to answer to the public.
I really dont care about GSIS fanatic, its another issue to tackle. What we are after are all those who contributes to the high cost of electricity and MERALCO is one of the culprits.
It is only MORAL that Meralco is in hot water at present. Its one way of busting Lopez’s bloated ego believing that they are “untouchables”
Law of Karma had been hitting him for all the misdeeds, look at his ABS-CBN boboos and brushes with the law? No one is above the law my friend.
Take your GSIS issue to another blog issue and your barking at the wrong tree my friend.
Simple questions needs simple answers, stick it to your mind.
July 30th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
fanatic:
It is totally unfair if we accuse everyone that criticized Meralco and the Lopezes to be pro-WinstonGarcia.
Although system losses are inherent in every stage of the entire energy production, transmission and distribution systems and even if it is mandated and capped by law, the utilities should take charge of their responsibility to improve their system and bring the losses down to minimum. So far, Meralco has not displayed any real effort to up-grade and improve their system. As technology improves, the laws that governs the industries must change.
The most unfortunate situation that is existing now is that the law did not capped the “take or pay” ceilings. The government in granting this incentive to energy suppliers inadvertently opened the gates to abuses by unscrupulous distribution utility companies that contract energy far above their requirements and then charge it all to their customers. This can easily happen in cases where the distribution utility companies also operate power generating companies. The temptation to cheat is simply to great to resist.