Manila – This WB safeguard review started almost 3 years ago, but communities and organizations in the Philippines barely understand its process and contents. And to our knowledge, this is the first actual official interaction with Philippine organizations. Yet, there has been too little time and lackluster effort to enable meaningful engagements. Meanwhile, Southern and Northern organizations expressed their struggles and frustrations with the dismal handling of the Bank of the safeguards review over the past 2 years. The WB meetings last Oct. 8-11, 2014 in Washington DC was a clear reflection of peoples’ deep resentment over the poor consultation and bad safeguards draft. And here is the Bank doing a repeat of the same failures in running effective consultations: you give us too short notice to prepare and incomplete documents to consult. No draft business procedures, no implementation plan, no translations.
The affected communities and their support groups demand that the WB safeguard policies must be strengthened to ensure real protections for people and the planet. The draft does not promise to deliver that.
We are concerned that right now, Filipinos are not overcoming poverty, inequality and hunger are increasing, our natural resources are threatened by industrialization and extractive industries while labor rights are diluted or informalized. Contrary to the Bank’s rosy narratives of Philippine growth linked with its financing, this growth is widening inequality. Bank financing has not helped in preventing the intensified privatization of commons and has contributed to the systematic dismantling of essential public services. It has been muted in dealing with the discrimination against marginalized groups such as PWDs, IPs, children, and sexual minorities who are the most vulnerable sectors. They have been threatened by projects that were partly-funded by the World Bank Group. Remember the Manila Sewerage Project? Remember Chico dam in Cordillera? Remember IFC’s support to a mining project in the ancestral domain of the Mamanwas in CARAGA? In many instances, safeguards were useful in ensuring some basic minimum levels of protection were available. But the Bank is moving to moving to eviscerate these basic human rights protections. You’re dumping people with more debts but you’re removing your environmental and human rights accountability.
We have watched with rising concern that your new “safeguard” proposals betray these expectations and represent the opposite. In this process, we believe that the World Bank is stepping back on its promise to reduce poverty.
Instead of ensuring protection of vulnerable communities and the project affected people, your draft proposes dismantling of even existing protections that have been built over decades of hard work, hard won protections that people have fought and died for here in the Philippines, including social justice laws for indigenous peoples, environment, land reform and people’s participation in governance.
We cannot remain mute spectators of this regressive journey and must convey to you the rising frustration and anger amongst the many communities that are facing these impacts from Bank-supported projects, and also within many people’s movements and supporting civil society groups, networks and alliances from all over the Philippines.
Our colleagues have watched with growing dismay – the increasingly insensitive responses to the passionate appeals by cornered and distressed communities affected by bank supported projects. I personally appealed that this consultation be re-scheduled to give time for communities and organizations to understand better the process and substance of the safeguards, but my appeal was rejected.
We are also alarmed by the rising talk of the Bank venturing into riskier investments, coming from as high positions as the WB President! Hundreds of indigenous peoples and forest dwellers organizations are terribly concerned with the proposed ‘opt out’ clause, and the dilution of protection hitherto given to biodiversity rich and protected areas. You also propose to venture into uncharted territory of biodiversity offsets! These are gambles more suited to a venture capital fund, not fit for a “Development Bank”, and the Filipinos cannot allow this to happen.
We, the dozens of people’s movements and organizations present here from all over the Philippines, and the many thousands we represent back from our communities, are rejecting this current draft of safeguards. The protections you now seek to dismantle, the safeguards that we fought for over decades - do not belong to you, they are not yours to throw away, they belong to the world and its vulnerable people.
We are also aware of a handful of saner voices from within the bank, and urge them to fight inside the system, for protecting the very rights they themselves enjoy – also for the people and communities around the world facing potential threats from this proposed dilution of protections. We strongly believe this protest action that we are compelled to take, will strengthen those voices and create a better environment for creating a really progressive safeguards policy. This will be in the interest of the bank itself, as well as for the entire Philippines, and the rest of the world.
That is why we are forced to take this action now and join our partners in the protest outside. Today we are going out of this consultation, to defend the safeguards and to stand with the World and against the Bank that is trying to destroy it! We sincerely hope that this will help a better tomorrow, within & outside.
Signatories:
AKBAYAN
Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA)
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM)
Bank Information Center (BIC)
DANGAL
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)
NAGKAISA
NGO Forum on the ADB
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ)
SANLAKAS
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Petilla won’t resign, vows to avert blackouts
MANILA, Philippines - Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla has shrugged off a labor coalition’s call for him to resign, saying that he is committed to avert a looming power shortage in the summer of 2015.
“I won’t allow the blackouts to happen. I will do everything to fight it out because I know I am fighting for the people,” Petilla said in an interview.
He maintained that he did not deceive anyone when he said there would be a power shortage when he proposed to invoke Section 71 of the energy law last July to allow the government to tap additional power capacity through the purchase or lease of modular generator sets.
He explained that since he made the proposal in July and revealed the projected power situation next summer, additional capacity of some 437 megawatts was tapped.
“Before July, this did not exist. There was no 437 MW,” he said.
Petilla noted that President Aquino’s declaration of a state of emergency in the power sector summoned stakeholders and the private sector to cooperate and work together in finding solutions to the looming power woes.
A Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-led group called Nagkaisa has asked Aquino to fire Petilla for “deceiving the Filipino people with his manufactured power shortage scenario hitting the entire island of Luzon early 2015.”
The group said Petilla painted a wrong picture to justify the call for emergency powers.
“Secretary Petilla took the country for a ride. He bluffed the President, the Cabinet, the senators and congressmen, the business sector, the labor and consumer groups with his tall tales of thin power reserves to justify emergency powers that entail possible purchase of multibillion-peso generator sets,” Nagkaisa said in a statement.
But Petilla maintained that the power situation in the summer of 2015 is still critical with the shortage still at 700 MW, taking into account the need for reserves of 647 MW, which is the size of Sual, the biggest plant in Luzon.
“When it comes to power, supply and reserves go hand in hand,” he said.
The additional 447 MW will come from the First Gen Corp.’s Avion plant with 100 MW by April 2015, 36 MW from the upgrading of Millennium Energy’s Limay plant to be ready by March 2015, 20 MW as a result of the rehabilitation of the Bauang plant by March 2015, 10 MW from Petron’s Bataan plant to be ready by December 2014, 60 MW from JG Summit’s Batangas plant for commissioning in January 2015 and 20 MW from the Botocan hydroelectric plant in Laguna for completion in December 2014 for a sub-total of 246 MW.
The balance is estimated to come from participants of the interruptible load program. Under the ILP, big power users would use their own power to ease pressure on the grid.
Petilla said that while this is a good development, there is no guarantee that the committed capacities would come as expected and run smoothly.
“These are all photo finish. We don’t have control over this if something goes wrong, so it is very prudent for the government to have reserves,” he added. – By Iris Gonzales (The Philippine Star) With Mayen Jaymalin
“I won’t allow the blackouts to happen. I will do everything to fight it out because I know I am fighting for the people,” Petilla said in an interview.
He maintained that he did not deceive anyone when he said there would be a power shortage when he proposed to invoke Section 71 of the energy law last July to allow the government to tap additional power capacity through the purchase or lease of modular generator sets.
He explained that since he made the proposal in July and revealed the projected power situation next summer, additional capacity of some 437 megawatts was tapped.
“Before July, this did not exist. There was no 437 MW,” he said.
Petilla noted that President Aquino’s declaration of a state of emergency in the power sector summoned stakeholders and the private sector to cooperate and work together in finding solutions to the looming power woes.
A Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-led group called Nagkaisa has asked Aquino to fire Petilla for “deceiving the Filipino people with his manufactured power shortage scenario hitting the entire island of Luzon early 2015.”
The group said Petilla painted a wrong picture to justify the call for emergency powers.
“Secretary Petilla took the country for a ride. He bluffed the President, the Cabinet, the senators and congressmen, the business sector, the labor and consumer groups with his tall tales of thin power reserves to justify emergency powers that entail possible purchase of multibillion-peso generator sets,” Nagkaisa said in a statement.
But Petilla maintained that the power situation in the summer of 2015 is still critical with the shortage still at 700 MW, taking into account the need for reserves of 647 MW, which is the size of Sual, the biggest plant in Luzon.
“When it comes to power, supply and reserves go hand in hand,” he said.
The additional 447 MW will come from the First Gen Corp.’s Avion plant with 100 MW by April 2015, 36 MW from the upgrading of Millennium Energy’s Limay plant to be ready by March 2015, 20 MW as a result of the rehabilitation of the Bauang plant by March 2015, 10 MW from Petron’s Bataan plant to be ready by December 2014, 60 MW from JG Summit’s Batangas plant for commissioning in January 2015 and 20 MW from the Botocan hydroelectric plant in Laguna for completion in December 2014 for a sub-total of 246 MW.
The balance is estimated to come from participants of the interruptible load program. Under the ILP, big power users would use their own power to ease pressure on the grid.
Petilla said that while this is a good development, there is no guarantee that the committed capacities would come as expected and run smoothly.
“These are all photo finish. We don’t have control over this if something goes wrong, so it is very prudent for the government to have reserves,” he added. – By Iris Gonzales (The Philippine Star) With Mayen Jaymalin
Peoples Action against the World Bank – Philippines
Manila – This WB safeguard review started almost 3 years ago, but communities and organizations in the Philippines barely understand its process and contents. And to our knowledge, this is the first actual official interaction with Philippine organizations. Yet, there has been too little time and lackluster effort to enable meaningful engagements.
Meanwhile, Southern and Northern organizations expressed their struggles and frustrations with the dismal handling of the Bank of the safeguards review over the past 2 years. The WB meetings last Oct. 8-11, 2014 in Washington DC was a clear reflection of peoples’ deep resentment over the poor consultation and bad safeguards draft. And here is the Bank doing a repeat of the same failures in running effective consultations: you give us too short notice to prepare and incomplete documents to consult. No draft business procedures, no implementation plan, no translations.
The affected communities and their support groups demand that the WB safeguard policies must be strengthened to ensure real protections for people and the planet. The draft does not promise to deliver that.
We are concerned that right now, Filipinos are not overcoming poverty, inequality and hunger are increasing, our natural resources are threatened by industrialization and extractive industries while labor rights are diluted or informalized. Contrary to the Bank’s rosy narratives of Philippine growth linked with its financing, this growth is widening inequality. Bank financing has not helped in preventing the intensified privatization of commons and has contributed to the systematic dismantling of essential public services. It has been muted in dealing with the discrimination against marginalized groups such as PWDs, IPs, children, and sexual minorities who are the most vulnerable sectors. They have been threatened by projects that were partly-funded by the World Bank Group. Remember the Manila Sewerage Project? Remember Chico dam in Cordillera? Remember IFC’s support to a mining project in the ancestral domain of the Mamanwas in CARAGA? In many instances, safeguards were useful in ensuring some basic minimum levels of protection were available. But the Bank is moving to moving to eviscerate these basic human rights protections. You’re dumping people with more debts but you’re removing your environmental and human rights accountability.
We have watched with rising concern that your new “safeguard” proposals betray these expectations and represent the opposite. In this process, we believe that the World Bank is stepping back on its promise to reduce poverty.
Instead of ensuring protection of vulnerable communities and the project affected people, your draft proposes dismantling of even existing protections that have been built over decades of hard work, hard won protections that people have fought and died for here in the Philippines, including social justice laws for indigenous peoples, environment, land reform and people’s participation in governance.
We cannot remain mute spectators of this regressive journey and must convey to you the rising frustration and anger amongst the many communities that are facing these impacts from Bank-supported projects, and also within many people’s movements and supporting civil society groups, networks and alliances from all over the Philippines.
Our colleagues have watched with growing dismay – the increasingly insensitive responses to the passionate appeals by cornered and distressed communities affected by bank supported projects. I personally appealed that this consultation be re-scheduled to give time for communities and organizations to understand better the process and substance of the safeguards, but my appeal was rejected.
We are also alarmed by the rising talk of the Bank venturing into riskier investments, coming from as high positions as the WB President! Hundreds of indigenous peoples and forest dwellers organizations are terribly concerned with the proposed ‘opt out’ clause, and the dilution of protection hitherto given to biodiversity rich and protected areas. You also propose to venture into uncharted territory of biodiversity offsets! These are gambles more suited to a venture capital fund, not fit for a “Development Bank”, and the Filipinos cannot allow this to happen.
We, the dozens of people’s movements and organizations present here from all over the Philippines, and the many thousands we represent back from our communities, are rejecting this current draft of safeguards. The protections you now seek to dismantle, the safeguards that we fought for over decades – do not belong to you, they are not yours to throw away, they belong to the world and its vulnerable people.
We are also aware of a handful of saner voices from within the bank, and urge them to fight inside the system, for protecting the very rights they themselves enjoy – also for the people and communities around the world facing potential threats from this proposed dilution of protections. We strongly believe this protest action that we are compelled to take, will strengthen those voices and create a better environment for creating a really progressive safeguards policy. This will be in the interest of the bank itself, as well as for the entire Philippines, and the rest of the world.
That is why we are forced to take this action now and join our partners in the protest outside. Today we are going out of this consultation, to defend the safeguards and to stand with the World and against the Bank that is trying to destroy it! We sincerely hope that this will help a better tomorrow, within & outside.
===================
Signatories:
AKBAYAN
Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA)
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM)
Bank Information Center (BIC)
DANGAL
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)
NAGKAISA
NGO Forum on the ADB
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ)
SANLAKAS
Meanwhile, Southern and Northern organizations expressed their struggles and frustrations with the dismal handling of the Bank of the safeguards review over the past 2 years. The WB meetings last Oct. 8-11, 2014 in Washington DC was a clear reflection of peoples’ deep resentment over the poor consultation and bad safeguards draft. And here is the Bank doing a repeat of the same failures in running effective consultations: you give us too short notice to prepare and incomplete documents to consult. No draft business procedures, no implementation plan, no translations.
The affected communities and their support groups demand that the WB safeguard policies must be strengthened to ensure real protections for people and the planet. The draft does not promise to deliver that.
We are concerned that right now, Filipinos are not overcoming poverty, inequality and hunger are increasing, our natural resources are threatened by industrialization and extractive industries while labor rights are diluted or informalized. Contrary to the Bank’s rosy narratives of Philippine growth linked with its financing, this growth is widening inequality. Bank financing has not helped in preventing the intensified privatization of commons and has contributed to the systematic dismantling of essential public services. It has been muted in dealing with the discrimination against marginalized groups such as PWDs, IPs, children, and sexual minorities who are the most vulnerable sectors. They have been threatened by projects that were partly-funded by the World Bank Group. Remember the Manila Sewerage Project? Remember Chico dam in Cordillera? Remember IFC’s support to a mining project in the ancestral domain of the Mamanwas in CARAGA? In many instances, safeguards were useful in ensuring some basic minimum levels of protection were available. But the Bank is moving to moving to eviscerate these basic human rights protections. You’re dumping people with more debts but you’re removing your environmental and human rights accountability.
We have watched with rising concern that your new “safeguard” proposals betray these expectations and represent the opposite. In this process, we believe that the World Bank is stepping back on its promise to reduce poverty.
Instead of ensuring protection of vulnerable communities and the project affected people, your draft proposes dismantling of even existing protections that have been built over decades of hard work, hard won protections that people have fought and died for here in the Philippines, including social justice laws for indigenous peoples, environment, land reform and people’s participation in governance.
We cannot remain mute spectators of this regressive journey and must convey to you the rising frustration and anger amongst the many communities that are facing these impacts from Bank-supported projects, and also within many people’s movements and supporting civil society groups, networks and alliances from all over the Philippines.
Our colleagues have watched with growing dismay – the increasingly insensitive responses to the passionate appeals by cornered and distressed communities affected by bank supported projects. I personally appealed that this consultation be re-scheduled to give time for communities and organizations to understand better the process and substance of the safeguards, but my appeal was rejected.
We are also alarmed by the rising talk of the Bank venturing into riskier investments, coming from as high positions as the WB President! Hundreds of indigenous peoples and forest dwellers organizations are terribly concerned with the proposed ‘opt out’ clause, and the dilution of protection hitherto given to biodiversity rich and protected areas. You also propose to venture into uncharted territory of biodiversity offsets! These are gambles more suited to a venture capital fund, not fit for a “Development Bank”, and the Filipinos cannot allow this to happen.
We, the dozens of people’s movements and organizations present here from all over the Philippines, and the many thousands we represent back from our communities, are rejecting this current draft of safeguards. The protections you now seek to dismantle, the safeguards that we fought for over decades – do not belong to you, they are not yours to throw away, they belong to the world and its vulnerable people.
We are also aware of a handful of saner voices from within the bank, and urge them to fight inside the system, for protecting the very rights they themselves enjoy – also for the people and communities around the world facing potential threats from this proposed dilution of protections. We strongly believe this protest action that we are compelled to take, will strengthen those voices and create a better environment for creating a really progressive safeguards policy. This will be in the interest of the bank itself, as well as for the entire Philippines, and the rest of the world.
That is why we are forced to take this action now and join our partners in the protest outside. Today we are going out of this consultation, to defend the safeguards and to stand with the World and against the Bank that is trying to destroy it! We sincerely hope that this will help a better tomorrow, within & outside.
===================
Signatories:
AKBAYAN
Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (AMA)
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM)
Bank Information Center (BIC)
DANGAL
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)
NAGKAISA
NGO Forum on the ADB
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ)
SANLAKAS
Blackouts could cost economy P23B – Aquino
IF an anticipated drop in power supply is not immediately solved and blackouts will occur next year, the cost to the economy could be as high as P23 billion, President Benigno Aquino 3rd warned on Wednesday.
Citing government estimates, Aquino said the economic cost of the feared power outages could reach a minimum of P9.3 billion to as high as P23.3 billion, excluding foregone revenues in sectors that will be affected by brownouts.
“[It depends] on the duration of the power outage. The lower figure [P9.3 billion] assumes power outage of two hours a day on average for three months. The higher figure [P23.3 billion] assumes a worse scenario of five hours a day also for three months,” the President noted during the Presidential Forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.
This, he said, will likely dent the annual gross domestic product (GDP).
“The economic cost as estimated here pertains to output foregone, i.e. GDP loss from stoppage of economic activities. The estimate does not include foregone investment and tourist arrivals arising from the negative impact of the power outage on the country’s image as investment and tourist destinations,” Aquino added.
It is for these reasons, the President explained, that he had asked Congress for extra powers under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) to address the situation on a “worst-case scenario” perspective.
“If there is no power come our summer months, there will only be one party that will be blamed, and that will be the executive. So we were asking from them various powers, not emergency, but these are really embodied already in Epira—to address the situation if and when El Niño is really severe, the forced outages in the trend that they have shown in the past two years also continue, to address also the cannot-be-postponed Malampaya shutdown, among other things,” Aquino said.
Although there are several options that the government can take, renting generators for about two years is no longer being considered because setting these up would take about six months.
The President said the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) is a “plausible substitute” but these standby generators for the most part have never been considered as baseload plants.
“What’s the difference? Standby generator, you run for a few hours. These ILP producers, in effect, will have to produce on a very regular basis, perhaps on a daily basis, if and when the reserve situation is seriously jeopardized,” he also explained.
Aquino said the Energy department balked on running the Malaya plants because they are 30 years old and it would be costly to maintain both plants.
Meanwhile, 49 labor groups and workers’ organizations called on the President to fire Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla for “deceiving the Filipino people” by manufacturing a power-shortage scenario.
The workers’ group Nagkaisa (United) was reacting to revelations during a recent congressional hearing where Energy officials admitted that the projected deficit in supply in 2015 is only about 21 to 31 MW, a far cry from the 1,200 MW shortfall trumpeted by Petilla.
“It is now very clear to us that Secretary Petilla took the country for a ride. He bluffed the President, the Cabinet and everyone with his tall tales of thin power reserves to justify emergency powers that entail possible purchase of multi-billion peso generator sets” Joshua Mata, a group convenor. said.
Another convenor, Louie Corral, executive director of Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-Nagkaisa, said the government should have acted as early as 2011 to avert a power crisis by building new power plants and exercising strong regulatory powers to prevent market fraud.
“The only time we will support emergency powers is when the government finally decides to take over the whole industry with the utmost objective of bringing down the price and securing a sustainable power supply not only for present needs but also for the next generations to come,” Corral added. - by JOEL M. SY EGCO SENIOR REPORTER AND JING VILLAMENTE REPORTER Manila Times
Citing government estimates, Aquino said the economic cost of the feared power outages could reach a minimum of P9.3 billion to as high as P23.3 billion, excluding foregone revenues in sectors that will be affected by brownouts.
“[It depends] on the duration of the power outage. The lower figure [P9.3 billion] assumes power outage of two hours a day on average for three months. The higher figure [P23.3 billion] assumes a worse scenario of five hours a day also for three months,” the President noted during the Presidential Forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.
This, he said, will likely dent the annual gross domestic product (GDP).
“The economic cost as estimated here pertains to output foregone, i.e. GDP loss from stoppage of economic activities. The estimate does not include foregone investment and tourist arrivals arising from the negative impact of the power outage on the country’s image as investment and tourist destinations,” Aquino added.
It is for these reasons, the President explained, that he had asked Congress for extra powers under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) to address the situation on a “worst-case scenario” perspective.
“If there is no power come our summer months, there will only be one party that will be blamed, and that will be the executive. So we were asking from them various powers, not emergency, but these are really embodied already in Epira—to address the situation if and when El Niño is really severe, the forced outages in the trend that they have shown in the past two years also continue, to address also the cannot-be-postponed Malampaya shutdown, among other things,” Aquino said.
Although there are several options that the government can take, renting generators for about two years is no longer being considered because setting these up would take about six months.
The President said the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) is a “plausible substitute” but these standby generators for the most part have never been considered as baseload plants.
“What’s the difference? Standby generator, you run for a few hours. These ILP producers, in effect, will have to produce on a very regular basis, perhaps on a daily basis, if and when the reserve situation is seriously jeopardized,” he also explained.
Aquino said the Energy department balked on running the Malaya plants because they are 30 years old and it would be costly to maintain both plants.
Meanwhile, 49 labor groups and workers’ organizations called on the President to fire Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla for “deceiving the Filipino people” by manufacturing a power-shortage scenario.
The workers’ group Nagkaisa (United) was reacting to revelations during a recent congressional hearing where Energy officials admitted that the projected deficit in supply in 2015 is only about 21 to 31 MW, a far cry from the 1,200 MW shortfall trumpeted by Petilla.
“It is now very clear to us that Secretary Petilla took the country for a ride. He bluffed the President, the Cabinet and everyone with his tall tales of thin power reserves to justify emergency powers that entail possible purchase of multi-billion peso generator sets” Joshua Mata, a group convenor. said.
Another convenor, Louie Corral, executive director of Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-Nagkaisa, said the government should have acted as early as 2011 to avert a power crisis by building new power plants and exercising strong regulatory powers to prevent market fraud.
“The only time we will support emergency powers is when the government finally decides to take over the whole industry with the utmost objective of bringing down the price and securing a sustainable power supply not only for present needs but also for the next generations to come,” Corral added. - by JOEL M. SY EGCO SENIOR REPORTER AND JING VILLAMENTE REPORTER Manila Times
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