monram’s

They were called “iskolar ng bayan” because a substantial part of their schooling was paid for by the people’s taxes. In gratitude, they were supposed to be “iskolar para sa bayan” and were to use their knowledge and skills to benefit the people. (more…)

The EPIRA law requires that those they call the “lifeliners” who consume 100kwh or less of electricity are given discounts ranging from 20% to 50% by the distribution utilities like Visayan Electric and Meralco. (more…)

From:
http://www.uniffors.com/?p=1511

I saw Winston Garcia, the hand puppet of Bonnie and Clyde, on TV claiming that if he were to take over Meralco he would bring down the price of electricity within one or two months and, if he couldn’t, he would resign.

Hmmm…eh why stop with Meralco? Why not take over Visayan electric, Davao electric and all the electric cooperatives nationwide? (more…)

Nakatutuwa naman itong ad para sa Meralco ni Juday, da popular aktres, upang ipaliwanag in less than 1 minute ang masalimuot na usapin ng “system loss”.

Tama si Juday — may “system loss” nga dahil natutunaw ang yelo kaya pagdating mo sa bahay ay maliit na yong binili mong yelo. (more…)

“I ordered the Regulatory Board to approve the reduction of toll fees at the NLEX for all types of vehicles passing there.”

– GMArroyo

No similar order was made for the SLEX (Southern Luzon Expressway).

The concessionaire of the NLEX is the Manila North Tollways Corporation, a member of the Lopez Group, the same Lopezes that manage the Meralco.

Sayang, sana ang mga Lopezes din ang concessionaires ng SLEX, Manila Water, Maynilad, TRANSCO (which was won by the Razon group, identified with the Arroyos), etc. Then GMA can order a reduction of their fees

TRANSCO, the state-owned national transmission company which controls and maintains the power grid, has a net income of at least 1.2 billion pesos a month.

Now, there is a report of a fellow electrical engineer — a young 2004 graduate — which says that TRANSCO is passing on a 2.98% system loss of its own to Meralco, which presumably passes it on to us, its ultimate consumers. This could probably explain the P2.5 billion that Meralco says is its under-recoveries from TRANSCO charges from August 2007 to March 2008, which presumably it will collect from its consumers. (more…)

We have been complaining of the “take or pay” provision in the contracts of the independent power producers (IPPs) with Napocor and Meralco. But we have not complained as much against the same provision imposed on us by the telcos. (more…)

“THE MINIMUM AMOUNT THAT A FAMILY of five living in the National Capital Region should earn nowadays to stay out of poverty is at least P10,000 a month, or over 16 percent more than what was required two years ago, according to the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB)…… The NSCB earlier reported that 26.9 percent of Filipino families were poor in 2006″.

— Inquirer news

The P10,000 requirement is based on a family of 5. That means P67 per day per person. If you do not have that much money per day to sustain yourself, then you belong to the “blessed are the poor…”

Now, if you have P67 per day, you don’t belong to the poor but you have an arithmetical problem: how to allocate P67 to have 3 meals a day (P20 per meal?), a roof on your head, and a shirt on your back and a few pesos for transportation. It is a tough math even for a genius like an Einstein.

Mon

GSIS Manager Garcia has his own system loss to explain. As the teachers tell it:

“Through the premium-based policy, lost revenues of GSIS due to their failure to collect premium payments, failure of government agencies to remit premium payments, or due to corruption are recovered from GSIS members in the form of huge deductions from the retirement and other benefits due them…“This onerous policy is the centerpiece of the much-vaunted reforms introduced by Garcia in 2003, which he credits with transforming the GSIS into a profitable concern. This is also at the root of the widespread discontent among public school teachers and other members of the GSIS, since they know only to well that the profits of GSIS are being made at their expense.”
(more…)

“First of all, what is important is the objective of the President to lower the power rate (for the benefit) of our countrymen. That’s the number one objective.”
— Deputy presidential spokesperson Anthony Golez, in a Inquirer report

Arroyo can make the initial first step: remove the EVAT taxes it slaps on the band of moving electrons called electricity
a) as it is generated by NAPOCOR and the IPPs
b) as it is being transmitted by TRANSCO over its high voltage transmission lines
c) as it is being distributed by DUs (like Meralco and Visayan Electric) until it reaches our homes. (more…)

(based on April 2008 bill)

Let :
G = Generation charge
Gtx = Tax on Generation charge (more…)

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers today scored Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) President and General Manager Winston Garcia for failing to publicly disclose his family’s involvement in the Visayan Electric Company (VECO), the second largest private electric utility in the country. (more…)

“Garcia is using GSIS members’ funds to enrich Malacañang’s cronies”

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers today issued a statement denouncing Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) President and General Manager Winston Garcia’s bid to take control of Meralco, the country’s largest electric utility.

“It’s ironic that while hundreds of thousands of teachers and government employees, who are members of GSIS, are victimized daily by the unjust policies implemented under his watch, Garcia now has the gall to present himself as the champion of public interest in leading the takeover bid against Meralco,” said ACT chairperson Antonio Tinio. Public school teachers make up one-third of GSIS’s 1.6 million members. Since 2003, there has been widespread disgruntlement among GSIS members sparked by new policies introduced by Garcia, such as the premium-based policy. According to ACT, such policies unlawfully deprive members of their full benefits. (more…)

Let us say you used 122 kwh of electricity last month.

1. A NAPOCOR or IPP plant produced that electricty.

Before it got out of the plant, you were slapped a tax of P62.50, or 51
centavos/kwh. (more…)

When the Arroyo government allowed jeepney drivers to collect P7.50 as the minimum fare a few years ago, diesel was at P26 per liter. Now diesel costs P42 and the minimum fare is still P7.50. The drivers take a cut in their earnings every time the price of diesel increases. (more…)

Here are two articles on power written in 2006 but which are still very relevant in the current debate on high power rates. The major points remain unchanged even if the quantitative data are those obtainining in 2006. We will update the data this weekend.

Ever increasing rates from the EPIRA:
A closer look at the electric power industry in the Philippines
BY DR. GIOVANNI TAPANG, ENGR. RAMON RAMIREZ, KIM GARGAR

Electric power is a basic service that is needed by households in everyday activities and is equally important for industries to operate. The failure of the government to provide electric power was evident when the country faced massive blackouts in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to a shortage of power supply. Download article here

E-VAT on Electricity: Short-circuiting the People’s Interest
BY MON RAMIREZ
Contributed to Bulatlat

Upon the passage of the Value Added Tax (VAT) law, the Arroyo administration assured the public that the imposition of VAT on power will have very minimal impact on our electric bill. True to its form, the Arroyo administration has been caught lying again with the latest electric bill. Download article here

I was interviewed last May 6 by radio station DZAS on the issue of high power rates. It was a 15-minute interview but only the last 11 minutes were recorded.

Click here to download MP3 audio file.

News Release
May 7, 2008

³A tax on a tax?”
POWER questions VAT implementation on power rates

The consumer group People Opposed Warrantless Electricity Rates (Power) today assailed the Value Added Tax on power rates saying this has given rise to “unjust and outrageous” tax burdens on the people.”

Power convenor Engr. Ramon Ramirez questioned the application of the VAT on items such as the franchise tax and systems losses. (more…)

We read in the papers complaints that Meralco and all the other distribution utilities charge their customers for the system losses — loss of electricity due to pilferage and technical and administrative inefficiencies. (more…)

For some reasons I had to attend two graduation rites: one at NCPAG on April 25 and another at the College of Engineering the following day.

At the entrance to the NCPAG, one sees this huge billboard announcing the name of the college with this in caps: “PAGLINGKURAN ANG SAMBAYANAN” (or Serve the People).

The graduating students of NCPAG were correctly referred to as “iskolar ng bayan” by their professors. Their commencement speaker, UP Century Man Engr. Fernando Javier had a message for them:”As Iskolar ng Bayan, continue to impact upon the lives of others, especially those in need.” (more…)

A contribution to MabuhayRadio.com

There are text messages and emails going around that are jokes about the Manila Pen standoff. I myself joked about it by texting a message that said a better slogan should have been “Mag-martsa sa Mendiola, hindi mag-check-in sa Manila Pen”. (more…)

Contributed for the UPAE Ingenium 2007

Since its establishment on June 13, 1910 the U.P. College of Engineering has regularly reviewed the curricula of the various courses and has made changes where appropriate. But it was during the long deanship of Dr. Vidal A. Tan, the first Filipino Dean of the College of Engineering from 1940 to 1949, when the groundwork for including social science and humanities subjects in the engineering curriculum was initiated. (more…)

Engineering Education
By Dean Vidal A. Tan
Philippine Collegian, Graduation issue, 1941

(more…)

Written by Gerry Baldo, Daily Tribune

Militant groups under the umbrella organization Peo-ple Opposed to Warrantless Electricity Rates (Power) have filed before the Office of the Ombudsman graft charges against officials of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) in connection with the alleged purchase of overpriced coal amounting to hundreds of millions of pesos. (more…)

An Email

Majority floor leader Art Defensor was already in the College of Law when I entered the University College at UP Diliman in 1961. I remember him well because he boarded at Rm 124 of Mayon (now Narra) Residence Hall, a room opposite Rm 125 where I boarded for ten pesos a month (which was a big amount then because the daily wage was P4). He was a good student, studious and possessed of good character and conduct that everybody would say he would be a very good lawyer and public servant later. (more…)

An email

This is the same DepEd that wants to have the $465 million (P21.7 biillion) Cyber-Ed Project. And yet, as the COA audit report says, it cannot even manage effectively such simple tasks as writing and delivering textbooks and using and maintaining computers. (more…)

An email reply

Demonstrations are not new. Even before the election of the partylist congressmen, demonstrations like these have been going on—during the Marcos years, Cory and all the presidents since then. A rally is an occasion to ventilate issues through placards, streamers, speeches, street plays and the like. It is one form shrine in the Constitution, freedom of assembly, for redress of grievances by the citizens. Isn’t it a fine thing that people would still try to redress grievances via demonstrations with the hope that the authorities would be prodded to act on them rather than take the law into their own hands? (more…)

An email

When I read the text message on the passing away of Ochie I wondered why I possibly missed receiving a text message informing everyone that he was confined at the Lung Center. We could have visited him. (more…)

An electric coop (or REC, or rural electric cooperative, the legal nomenclature used) is owned and managed by the consumers who are also its members who elect the members of the board and appoint a GM to manage its day-to-day operation. (more…)

An Email for the Northern Dispatch Editors & Readers (more…)

An email

GMA’s oplan was implemented in 2002 and is supposed to terminate the insurgency in 5 years, that is, by the end of 2006. Compared to the previous administrations, GMA’s situation is not really very favorable for her in waging and winning an all-out war. (more…)

Our Albay High School class of 1961 already had five reunions: in 1969, 1971, 1979 and 1993; our classmates in North America held a mini-reunion there in 1994. The sixth will be held in May this year at the same school grounds that our young feet trod on daily 45 years ago. Five years from now, in 2011, we will have the grandest of them all, our golden jubilee. (more…)

“Controversial Major General Jovito Palparan Jr. has set Sept. 21 this year — his 56th birthday — as the deadline for wiping out the communist insurgency no administration has succeeded in licking for nearly four decades.” - Inquirer News

In all my years doing some engineering projects, this is the first time I have seen a timeline with a birthday as the completion date. But then this is not an engineering project.

Here’s an item on the OFWs from The Los Angeles Times. The main points here are not new - these have been mentioned in the reports published by the local media like Bulatlat, Ibon and others. (more…)

An email

We don’t have a copy yet of the SC decision and therefore have not read it. But newspaper reports say that the SC upheld a 2000 decision by a Makati Trial Court preventing NPC from operating the Sucat to Araneta Avenue. It decided on a case filed by the residents of Dasmariñas Village which had opposed the transmission line project because of health concerns. (more…)

I.e., 30+ years ago. Bago lang ang martial law noon. Natatandaan kong nagpatawag ng referendum (yata ang tawag dun) si Marcos para pagbotohan ang bagong Constitution. (more…)

A subscriber in another yahoogroups pointed out the verbatim coyping - yes, word for word — of the “Now, therefore I” Marcos 1081 by GMA 1017. Tinamad na sigurong magisip yong nagdraft ng 1017 kaya copy and paste na lang. (more…)

An email

When Manila Water was awarded its concession 6 years ago, it was also given a tax holiday for 6 years, exempting it from paying income taxes. (more…)

Written by Tetch Torres, INQ7.net

Officials of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) should resign after the Supreme Court nullified an ERC order allowing Manila Electric Power Co. (Meralco) to increase its power generation rates, militant leaders said Friday. (more…)

Contributed to Bulatlat

At an average of 70 centavos per kwh and a total sale of about 24 billion kwh, electricity users in the Meralco franchise area will be contributing to the government a total of P17 billion every year. The government collects additional billions from the more than 120 electric utilities and electric coops in the country. It should be obvious why the Arroyo administration just have to impose the tax on power. (more…)

Written by KR Guda, Pinoy Weekly

Mon Ramirez, inhinyero: Staff EE (electrical engineer) ako noon ng San Miguel Corp. kung saan ako nagtrabaho mula 1968. Pero nasama na rin ako sa SMS (Samahan ng mga Makabayang Siyentipiko) na pinamumunuan nina Doc Gonzalo Jurado bilang tagapangulo at Doc Roger Posadas bilang presidente. Kumuha kami ng upahang apartment sa Matatag St sa UP Teacher’s Village at paminsan-minsan ay doon pumupunta si Roger para sa mga pag-aaral at pag-discuss ng mga trabaho. Kung minsan ay kasama rin niya si Vic Clemente (ngayon nasa America na) na siyang pinakapinuno ng grupo. (more…)

Written by Agham Press Corps

AGHAM-Laguna recently concluded its forum on “The Role of Scientists and Engineers in Amplifying National Issues: The Cases of Power and Energy, Water, Telecommunications and Mechanization” last August 30 (Tues), 2005 at the College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (CEAT) Lecture Hall, UPLB, College, Laguna. (more…)

Signed together with Dr. Giovanni Tapang, Agham Chairperson for newspaper editors (more…)

Posted by Cesar Torres at the SamarNews Message Board (more…)

Written by Federico D. Pascual, Jr. on his column at the Philippine Star

TEXTING FOOTNOTE: For the benefit of those who are not on the loop, here is more material on the raging debate on Sun’s offering cheaper and unlimited texting and phoning services.

(more…)

Written by Lyn V. Ramo for the Northern Dispatch

BAGUIO CITY — Bayan Muna party list representative Satur Ocampo’s technical consultant, an electrical engineer, noted that Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) increased its power rate by 6.8% after the unbundling of its power rates. This is contrary to the provision of Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) that the unbundling should not increase the rates. (more…)