2012/12/07

Lower MERALCO Bill in Dec 2012 billing


Meralco generation charge lower by 0.15 centavos per kWh in Dec.

Business Mirror
Published on Thursday, 
06 December 2012 20:23
Written by Paul Anthony A. Isla

CUSTOMERS of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s largest power retailer, can expect lower power bills this month.

Meralco said on Thursday that its generation charge dropped by  0.15 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to P5.47 per kWh this month.

Meralco added that the lower cost of power supplied by the National Power Corp. (Napocor), which saw a reduction of 0.31 centavos per kWh, and caused mainly by lower purchases during peak periods in the November supply compared to the previous month.

The lower Napocor charges, Meralco added also offset a 0.04-centavos-per kWh increase in overall costs from independent power producers (IPPs), because of the reduced dispatch of First Gas and Quezon Power.

Meralco said IPP costs would have been higher without the improved dispatch and lower fuel costs of SEM-Calaca. Meralco also noted that charges from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) also increased by 0.52 centavos per kWh.

Meralco added that the impact of the increase in WESM prices was mitigated by a reduction in the company’s exposure to the spot market to 6 percent from 7 percent of its total supply requirements.
Meralco added that Napocor and IPPs accounted for 51 percent and 43 percent, respectively, of its total power requirements. 

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2012/12/04

Happy New Rate 2013

As if adding insalt (misspelling deliberately mine, correct one is insult of course) to injury power rate hike will be the new year's gift for Filipino electric consumers come 2013.

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Read the news...

Higher power rates loom in early ’13

PSALM may start collecting P140B in stranded debts
By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer


The state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. expects to start collecting the P140 billion worth of universal charges for stranded debts and contract costs from all grid-connected power consumers early next year.

This followed reports that the Energy Regulatory Commission might release by January 2013 the much-awaited decision regarding PSALM’s application to collect the universal charge (UC), according to PSALM president Emmanuel Ledesma Jr.

Should PSALM’s application be approved, consumers can expect to pay another 36 centavos a kilowatt-hour over the next four years and a separate 3 centavos a kWh over a 15-year period to help pay the debt of another cash-strapped government firm, National Power Corp. (Napocor).

The 36 centavos a kWh that PSALM wanted to pass on to consumers would cover the payment of “stranded contract costs,” while the 3 centavos a kWh would be used to settle “stranded debts.” With the 39 centavos a kWh from the universal charge, PSALM will be able to collect about 25 billion a year to help settle its outstanding obligations.

PSALM, however, is hoping to collect the universal charge for stranded contract costs (UC-SCC) for a longer period of 15 years, instead of the current four years set by the ERC, to ease the burden on consumers.

Should the ERC allow PSALM to recover the universal charge for 15 years, the additional increase would be equivalent to 6 centavos a kWh. This means that the total universal charges for both stranded contract costs and stranded debts will amount to 9 centavos a kWh over the next 15 years. At 9 centavos a kWh, PSALM will be able to collect an additional P5 billion from consumers annually.

According to Ledesma, PSALM also wanted to extend its corporate life by another 10 years as this would further reduce the universal charge burden to about 6.5 centavos to 7 centavos a kWh over a longer period.

“Extending the corporate life of PSALM is not necessary but it would be nice because we’re trying to mitigate the impact to the consumers—it will be for the benefit of the consumer,” Ledesma stressed.

PSALM has been seeking to extend its corporate life to 2036, intended only to mitigate the impact of the collection of the P140 billion in universal charges on all power consumers.

2012/11/23

Solar panels in Philippines pushed


Use of rooftop solar panels in Philippines pushed

By 



German and Philippine solar technology developers are pushing for a massive installation of solar panels on rooftops of households, commercial establishments and buildings as these could help ensure the country’ energy security over the long term.
“As we enter 2013, we would like to focus on the solar rooftops because we believe this is going to be a major initiative by the [solar] industry in providing solutions to our problems in the energy sector,” said Theresa Cruz-Capellan, one of the founders of the Philippine Solar Power Alliance (PSPA).
“There are about half a million new residential projects that are going on stream every year. If only 10 percent of these can be convinced to put solar panels on their rooftops, that will be a big help to both the distribution utilities and power generation companies,” Capellan said. She added that it would also help reduce the country’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.
The potential market for solar industry players was estimated at about $450 million, or P19 billion, yearly. This was based on the 50,000 households (representing 10 percent of the half a million constructions yearly) that can install solar panels with a capacity of 2 kilowatts.
To produce a kilowatt of solar power from these rooftop panels, one would need to invest about $4,500 for the actual components and installation works. This investment can be recovered in about seven years but the solar panels usually last for at least 25 years, said Capellan.
She said investors in solar energy were also in talks with real estate developers and the Climate Change Commission for the possible inclusion of rooftop solar panels in housing projects within “ecotowns.”
Thomas Chrometzka, head of international affairs of Germany’s Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft e.V., said that the potential of photovoltaic systems globally continued to be underestimated in some parts of the world. In Germany, however, rooftop installations account for about 80 percent of the installed solar capacity of 30 gigawatts.
Chrometzka said rooftop solar panels could be a viable solution for the Philippines given its high solar irradiation level.
The Philippines is said to have solar irradiation of 1,900 kilowatts a square meter.
Electricity produced from solar energy, however, remained marginal compared to other renewable energy sources, such as hydro and geothermal, due to the perceived high costs of solar panels and installation.

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2012/11/09

MERALCO power rate hike anew in November 2012


Another power rate hike from Meralco... wheeewww when can we have just stable price?

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Meralco to hike power rates this month
By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer


Customers of Manila Electric Co., the country’s biggest power distributor, may expect higher power bills this month due to an increase in the cost of electricity sourced from the spot market. 

“Initial results from the (wholesale electricity spot market) show an increase in generation prices,” said a source privy to Meralco data. 

According to the source, the increase in WESM rates was due to the “deenergization of the Luzon-Visayas interconnection from October 8 to 13,” which resulted in the reduction of power supply coming from the Visayas grid. 

The Leyte–Luzon HVDC link, a high voltage direct current transmission link between geothermal power plants on the island of Leyte and the southern part of Luzon, was deenergized due to annual preventive maintenance work on the converter station, the source said, citing the daily market update from the Philippine Electricity Market Corp., operator of the wholesale electricity spot market. 

The source added that the maintenance work on the converter station took place just as some plants in Luzon experienced power outages. 

The link begins at the Ormoc converter station in Leyte and ends at the Naga station in Camarines Sur. 

During the same period, market prices also rose significantly, the source said. In particular, the load-weighted average price (LWAP) last month peaked at P13.60 per kilowatt-hour on October 10. 

The electric utility has yet to announce the final generation charges for November.

2012/11/08

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2012/11/02

Philippines to add more Solar Power in the Grid


Gov’t to change renewable energy mix
Bigger allocation eyed for solar, wind projects
By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer


The Department of Energy (DOE) is planning to reallocate the installation targets among the renewable energy sources in favor of the more expensive solar and wind power projects. 

Energy Undersecretary Jose Layug Jr. assured the public, however, that such an action would not increase the feed-in-tariff (FIT) allowance—or the universal levy to be collected from all power consumers for the use of renewable energy facilities—beyond the estimate of 5 centavos per-kilowatt-hour (kWh). 

The DOE has set a limited installation target of 760 megawatts. This means that only those projects that receive an allocation from this installation target—which refers to the total capacity of renewable energy projects that will be allowed to be constructed within a three-year period—will be subject to the feed-in-tariff rates. 

Under the current installation target, the 250 MW has been allocated for hydropower projects, 250 MW for biomass, 50 MW for solar, 200 MW for wind power and 10 MW for ocean power. 

The initial plan being studied by the DOE is to increase the installation target for wind projects by another 50 to 60 MW to increase the allowed capacity to as much as 300 to 310 MW. The installation target for solar projects may also be increased by another 30 MW to a total of 80 MW. 

According to Layug, the reallocation was meant to address the oversubscription on the two particular resources. This means many of the proponents have wind and solar projects whose total capacities are much higher than the allocated installation targets.

2012/10/11

Misconceptions About Solar Panels


Debunking Misconceptions About Solar Panels
(from TalkSolar Panels Blog in UK)

As solar power becomes a more affordable option for businesses and homeowners alike, critics and naysayers have come out of the woodworks in order to argue the feasibility of installing small solar power systems for a consumer market. Opponents to solar power will raise all kinds of arguments against the new technology, but most of their points are uneducated, inaccurate, and in some cases, flat out wrong.

A common argument against the use of consumer solar panels is the cost. Opponents of the technology insist, even as prices continue to decrease, that complete solar panel systems are still too expensive for the common homeowner. In reality, however, solar panels have actually decreased so much that small to moderate sized systems will typically pay for themselves within a few years. Larger systems may require a longer period of time.

The strongest opponents of solar power are quick to say that solar panels actually contribute to global warming. However, there are no harsh chemicals, fossil fuels, or greenhouse gases associated with the use of modern solar panel systems. In fact, the entire carbon footprint of a modern solar panel system is made during the manufacturing and transportation of such systems.

Many people, including critics and supporters alike, believe that solar panels require full, direct sunlight in order to operate an efficient level. However, solar panels actually derive their energy from the UV rays of the sun, which are strong enough to penetrate clouds, fog, and inclement weather. Moreover, cooler temperatures actually facilitate the generation and transfer of energy, which ultimately results in increased efficiency within your entire solar panel system.

Another one of the most common misconceptions about solar panel pertains to your energy storage options. Many critics of solar power contend that a large bank of batteries is needed in order to store the extraneous energy generated from your solar panel system. The fact is, however, that nearly every solar panel system in use today is still tied to the national power grid in some way or another. When not in use, your solar panels channel their energy directly into the grid, which results in a credit to your account. 

Opponents of solar panels also tend to doubt the durability and integrity of today’s solar panels. The fact is, however, that solar panels are incredibly durable and resilient. They are able to withstand a variety of hazards, including severe weather, snow, and ice – and with an average solar panel warranty of 25 years, owners are protected against most common problems.

Lastly, many critics say today’s solar panel systems are inconsistent, unreliable, and inefficient. However, a complete, professionally installed solar panel system can actually function at a level that is more consistent and reliable than your local utility service. Because there are no moving parts involved with a solar panel, the chances of a malfunction are actually quite low. 

2012/10/10

Meralco hikes October billing


Meralco hikes October billing by P0.12 per kWh

By Alena Mae S. Flores
Manila Standard - online


Manila Electric Co., the country’s biggest power distributor,  said Monday its October billing  will go up by P0.12 per kilowatt-hour due to higher generation, transmission and other pass-through costs.

Meralco said in a statement the October generation charge rose to P5.50 per kWh from P5.40 per kWh in September while transmission and other rates increased.

“Following a P1.73 per kWh reduction in power prices in September, a residential customer with a consumption of 200 kWh will see a P0.12 per kWh increase in their electric bill this October as a result of higher generation, transmission and other pass-through costs,” Meralco said.

A P0.12 per kWh hike translates into an increase of P24 in the electricity bill of Meralco customers with a monhtly consumption of 200 kWh.

The company attributed the higher generation charges to increased charges of P1.16 per kWh from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market. WESM acts as the trading floor for electricity supplies.

Meralco said electricity consumption in September increased after the holidays while rainy weather in August depressed the demand for power.

The reduction in the available generation capacity and restriction in the output of coal-fired plants due to repairs and maintenance eventually led to increases in WESM prices.

Meralco said the higher WESM charges were partly offset by lower prices from its independent power producers, whose rates decreased P0.09 per kWh, and National Power Corp., which registered a decrease of P0.22 per kWh.

Meralco’s IPPs includes First Gen Corp., Quezon Power Philippines Ltd. and DMCI Power Corp.

The WESM, IPPs and Napocor contributed 6.9 percent, 44.1 percent, and 49 percent, respectively, to Meralco’s power supply for the month of September.

Meralco said the transmission charge also went up by a slight P0.04 per kWh, mainly because of higher ancillary generation costs, which are affected by WESM charges.

2012/10/04

Philippinines Home Developers mull over building solar houses

Developers mull over building solar houses

By Alena Mae S. Flores
Manila Standard Today


Solar power developers are in talks with major property companies to build solar-powered houses that will significantly cut the homeowners’ electricity bills.

Philippine Solar Power Alliance spokesman Tetchie Capellan said discussions were ongoing with Sta. Lucia Realty and Development Inc., Fil-Estate Properties and Avida Land for the solar rooftop projects.

“As we enter 2013, we would like to focus on the solar rooftops because we believe that this is going to be a major initiative by the industry in providing solutions to our problems in the energy sector. We are working with developers for new builds. We are exploring partnership with them,” Capellan told reporters during a conference organized by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit or GIZ.

Capellan said the company was working with property developers that build housing units with cost of P3 million to P5 million and with higher power consumption than low-cost housing units.

She said the company asked developers to bundle the expesnses of the solar rooftop of around P378,000 into the housing cost.  The return on investment for the solar rooftop takes about seven years.

2012/09/06

Gov't releases guidelines for RE projects

Gov't releases guidelines for RE projects
By Neil Jerome C. Morales  (The Philippine Star) Updated September 05, 2012 12:00 AM


MANILA, Philippines - The National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) has released two key guidelines that aim to encourage the use of and investments into renewable energy (RE).

Specifically, the NREB published the rules on net metering and feed-in tariff allowance (FIT-All) for public comments.

Net metering is a system that allows a two-way connection to the grid wherein users are charged for the net electricity consumption and credited for any overall contribution to the grid.

“The rules are being issued to encourage end-users to participate in renewable electricity generation,” NREB said.

It will also allow local players to gain actual experience in installing RE systems for net metering application under local conditions, the agency added.

All end-users in a good credit standing in terms of payments to their power provider can put up RE systems and sell excess electricity to the grid.

Applicable in the net metering program are wind, solar and biomass energy generation.

In the draft rules, the Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), National Transmission Corp., power distributors, among others, were tasked to provide mechanisms for the physical connection and commercial arrangements in the net metering program, NREB said.


Power distributors and qualified end-users, for their part, should grant regulators free access to all data generated by net-metering “to enable the creation of a knowledge-based resource for net-metering,” it added.

For safety reasons, NREB said power distributors may enter qualified end-users’ premises to inspect, maintain and operate the protective devices and read or test the meters and other facilities.

Industry regulator ERC will put up a set of special rules and pricing methodology for net metering.

Preliminary benchmark rates will depend on distribution utilities’ generation charges.

The ERC, for its part, scheduled a public consultation for the net metering rules on Sept. 21.

Meanwhile, the NREB published the FIT-All draft guidelines that aim to manage additional tariffs paid by end-users under the FIT scheme.

The FIT scheme, guarantees investments of RE firms through fixed rates that would be shouldered by consumers over 20 years.

“The FIT-All shall approximate the total payments required to be made to all eligible RE Developers under the FIT system based on forecasted values,” NREB said.

The FIT-All will be charged from customers per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for all on-grid areas in the Philippines.

NREB also created provisions for items like FIT-All differential, working capital allowance, administration allowance, disbursement allowance, and FIT over and under recovery.

The new rates will be collected by power distributors, the grid operator and retail electricity suppliers. It will then be remitted to the FIT-All fund administrator.

“While the FIT rules have designated the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines as administrator, there are ongoing discussions to enhance and streamline the functions of the FIT-All administrator,” ERC said.

Hence, the regulator set a public consultation for the FIT-All guidelines on Sept. 20.

In July, the ERC approved the FIT rates, which brings closer to reality the P106.85 billion worth of RE projects planned under the scheme.

Specifically, approved FIT that shall apply to green power generation projects are P5.90 per kwh for those sourced from run-of-river hydropower, P6.63 per kwh for biomass, P8.53 per kwh for wind and P9.68 per kwh for solar.

To date, the Philippines sources 35 percent its total power requirements from RE sources.

2012/09/02

Separate Pricing For RE Metering


By MYRNA M. VELASCO
September 1, 2012, 
Manila Bulletin (MBC) Online

MANILA, Philippines — A separate pricing methodology will have to be approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in line with the ‘net metering policy’ or the import-and-export of renewable energy (RE) capacity into the power grid.

In the draft Net Metering Rules, it was stipulated that the ERC, in consultation with the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) and the electric power industry participants, “shall establish in another set of special rules a pricing methodology applicable to net metering.”

The RE technologies that could qualify for net metering include wind, solar, biomass and biogas energy system or other RE systems which are capable of getting installed within the premises of a qualified end-user or QE.

While the final tariffs for capacities under net metering are being deliberated on, it was reckoned that a distribution utility’s “blended generation cost equivalent to the generation charge, including any and all adjustments appearing in the QE’s electric bill, shall be used as the preliminary reference price in net-metering agreements.”

The DU, in turn, is allowed “to charge incremental supply and metering charges which shall be equivalent to 10-percent of their existing ERC-approved Philippine peso-per customer-per month supply and metering rates plus R0.01 per kilowatt hour (kWh) to all customers who avail of the net metering program.”

It was further specified that “the cost of RE supply procured under net metering agreements shall automatically be included in the DU’s total generation cost to be recovered from DU customers as part of the adjusted generation rates.”

In the installation of meters, it was proposed that “an import meter shall be installed by the DU to measure the import of energy from the distribution system to the QE’s premises.”

Similarly, a distribution utility shall “install an export meter at an agreed point of interconnection to measure the export of energy from the RE system to the distribution system.”

There is also an option for the DU “to install a bi-directional meter that can measure both imported and exported energy in lieu of separate import and export meters.”

An alternative to that will be for the DU, “to install a third meter in proximity to the RE system to measure the total RE generated for the QE’s own use and the excess RE exported to the distribution system.”

2012/08/23

Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants


The main reason why coal is going cheaper for Philippine Power Plants is that coal thermal plants in the US is now going to be required to meet stiff emission standards.

Question. Is US emission standards applicable to Philippines settings? 
Answer: Why not... US and Philippines share the same planet called Earth.

Then it is imperative that coal power plants that is going to be constructed wherever in the Philippines now and the future shall (not should, but SHALL) follow the strictest emission standard available, whether it is in US or in Europe not because we are just getting in alignment with them but because we share one EARTH. - EastGreenfields


Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants

EPA is proposing to take common-sense steps under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon pollution from new power plants. EPA’s proposed standard reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector to build cleaner plants that take advantage of American-made technologies. The agency’s proposal, which does not apply to plants currently operating or new permitted plants that begin construction over the next 12 months, is flexible and would help minimize carbon pollution through the deployment of the same types of modern technologies and steps that power companies are already taking to build the next generation of power plants. EPA’s proposal would ensure that this progress toward a cleaner, safer and more modern power sector continues. 

Power plants are the largest individual sources of carbon pollution in the United States and currently there are no uniform national limits on the amount of carbon pollution that future power plants will be able to emit. Consistent with the US Supreme Court’s decision, in 2009, EPA determined that greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long lasting changes in our climate that can have a range of negative effects on human health and the environment.


Basic Information

In 2009, EPA determined that greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long lasting changes in our climate that can have a range of negative effects on human health and the environment.

There are currently no uniform national limits on the amount of carbon pollution future power plants will be able to emit, and they are the largest individual source of carbon pollution in the country. EPA's proposed standard reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector to build cleaner plants that take advantage of American-made technologies.

Carbon pollution and health

This standard ensures that power companies investing in long-lived new fossil fuel fired power plants will use clean technologies that limit harmful carbon pollution.

Carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere and contributes to climate change, which is a threat to public health and the environment for current and future generations.  

EPA is taking common-sense steps to limit these emissions, by addressing emissions from fossil-fired power plants, which are the largest new sources of carbon pollution. 

Unchecked greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long-lasting changes in our climate. 

 The health risks from climate change are especially serious for children, the elderly, and those with heart and respiratory problems. 

Cleaner, dependable energy

The nation’s electricity comes from diverse and largely domestic energy sources, including fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro and, increasingly, renewable energy sources. The proposed standard would not change this fact, and EPA put a focus on ensuring this standard provides a pathway forward for a range of important domestic resources, including coal with technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

The proposed rule would apply only to new fossil-fuel-fired electric utility generating units (EGUs). For purposes of this rule, fossil-fuel-fired EGUs include fossil-fuel-fired boilers, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) units and stationary combined cycle turbine units that generate electricity for sale and are larger than 25 megawatts (MW). 

EPA’s proposal reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector—a shift toward cleaner power plants that take advantage of modern technologies that will become the next generation of power plants. EPA’s proposed rule would ensure this progress continues.  

New plants can choose to burn any fossil fuel to generate electricity, including natural gas as well as coal with the help of technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

Source:
http://www.epa.gov/carbonpollutionstandard/

2012/08/21

What’s wrong with the Philippines?


(EastGreenfields note: In celebration of the 29th year of the death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino, we will give space for one of his essay)

What’s wrong with the Philippines?
By Benigno S. Aquino Jr.
First Posted 00:39:00 08/21/2010

(Editors note: The following essay, written by the assassinated father of President Aquino, appeared in the Solidarity quarterly journal in 1985. The President’s father was murdered at the Manila International Airport on Aug. 21, 1983, upon his return from voluntary exile in the United States. The Inquirer obtained the permission of Solidarity to reprint this on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of his martyrdom.) 


MANILA, Philippines—A diplomat, after a seven-year tour of duty in the Philippines, once christened the islands as an “enchanting archipelago.” Whether he was merely being polite, or had succumbed to government pitchmen, or had himself become enchanted by the lush tropical beauty of the islands, he should also have seen a country wracked by afflictions, some common to all countries engaged in the desperate race to develop, some peculiar to the Philippines.

Purveyors of the rosy picture continue to roll out endless statistics and charts to depict a growing economy, a country on the move. A portion of this view may even be accepted, considering that the Philippines, with all its imperfections, is only 21 years old as a free republic. The trouble is that there is one vital natural resource that has not been properly developed: the people.
Beneath the outpourings of self-serving government data, hidden underneath the trappings of the good life in the big cities, there remains a depressed and dispirited people. Against the yardstick, not of statistics but of quality of life, the Filipino people as a whole are a melancholy—if patient—mass. Their daily diet is monotonous (rice, fish, vegetables), their clothes are threadbare and their homes primitive and crowded. What could they hope to build on a daily per capita income of just over 25 cents? In sum, the blessings of liberty do not include liberation from poverty.

Foreign gadgetry and other luxury goods continue to flood the cities, and more people travel, despite current government restrictions. But this only serves to dramatize the great disparities and chronic inequities of Filipino society. Indeed, the Philippines is a land of traumatic contrasts. Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of the slums. Here is a land where freedom and its blessings are a reality for a minority and an illusion for the many. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite. 

Here is a land of privilege and rank—a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste.Caste spells bondage. Of this the contemporary Filipino is well aware. And to break through—to rise out of this bondage into the next higher social stratum—is the ambition of the tao, the Filipino common man. For him, education appears at first the ticket to his aspirations, and parents sell their last worldly possessions, even go deep into debt, to see a son or a daughter through college. But each year, no less than 65,000 swell the ranks of this army of the discontented, educated unemployed. Unemployment runs up to a million, while the under-employed represent 20 to 25 percent of the population, largely in the rural areas. The upsurge of the communist Huks in Central Luzon is but one chilling manifestation of peasant disillusionment. Another is the recent wave of crime which has converted the country into a land of terror in time of peace.

Add to this a government which is financially almost bankrupt, state agencies ridden by debts and honeycombed with graft, industries in pathetic distress, prices in a continuing spiral and there is good reason for the Filipino to feel sapped of confidence, hope and will. The new, young Filipino leaders who exhort their peers to be activists, and not to give up, are greeted with apathy and indifference.

In the early thirties, Manuel L. Quezon, as he led the fight for independence, once raged: “I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than one run like heaven by the Americans.” The father of his country did not live to see this preference realized, but his political heirs have. Since independence, Philippine presidents have logged a grand total of 14 national plans and all they have to show for them is a nation that looks, sounds, and feels discouraged. It is confused by the multiplicity of its cravings, and concerns, floundering in haphazard attempts to modernize and innovate.

Government apologists predictably will disagree with these conclusions. Great strides have been made, they will maintain, and they can indeed produce the required statistics to back up their claims. But the assertion that development is accelerating is only partly correct. “Orderly growth and evolution require delicate synchronization,” Filipino economist Sixto K. Roxas has cogently argued. And this is precisely what is wanting in Philippine economic planning.

Champagne taste on beer income

The truth is that there has been no organized, no methodical over-all economic planning. At best, all that our previous planners have trotted out have been limited programs which, tragically for the people, have bred individual hustling and pushing while the overall economy ran inconclusively in every direction. The result has been impasse in the development of critical sectors of the economy, such as the metal, chemical, wood, plastics and food industries.

For a people who at independence set out to pursue the American way of life as the ideal, the Filipinos—21 years later—are nowhere near the mark. “We are,” one Filipino declared in self-reproach, “a people with champagne taste, operating on a beer income.” Actually quite a number of Filipinos cannot even afford beer.
The annual per capita income is less than $100, less than Communist China’s today and equal to Japan’s only way back in 1910. The gross national product grows between 5 and 6 percent per year, but it is offset by a ballooning population increasing at a rate of 3.4 percent per year, one of the world’s highest. The GNP growth, in fact is hardly enough to absorb the backlog of unemployed and underemployed, to say nothing of improving the people’s standard of living.

Who’s to blame?

Fault, if it must be fixed, belongs not to any single man or people. It lies in the fabric of the society—and in what went into its making. Too many Filipinos are without purpose and without discipline. They profess love of country, but love themselves individually—more. When then Senate President Jose Avelino, in an expansive mood, exclaimed, “What are we in power for?” and when much later President Carlos P. Garcia defended a Cabinet member’s right to “prepare for his future,” these leaders were articulating a common outlook.

Without a soul

The responsibility belongs also to those who came, conquered, and ruled—to America as much as to Spain. For all the good they did (Spain welded and Christianized the people, America democratized them), they are responsible for the worst in the Filipino. While bleeding them, they molded the Filipinos in their own images, Spain Hispanizing, and America Americanizing the natives. Almost half of a century of American rule bequeathed to the Asian Filipino a trauma by making him uncomfortably American in outlook, values and tastes. What was left was a people without a soul.

Filipinos are bewildered about their identity. They are an Asian people not Asian in the eyes of their fellow Asians and not Western in the eyes of the West. They are in Asia, but they know more about the Statue of Liberty than about Angkor Wat in Cambodia; more of the lyrics of Whitman than of Tagore or of their own Nick Joaquin; more of Patrick Henry’s soul-stirring liberty-or-death oratory than of the ageless wisdom of Confucius or Lao-tze. Lately, they have taken to insisting they are Asian but they are so American-oriented that—by reflex—they still react and respond like little brown Americans.

Except for the hyper-nationalists, the Filipinos actually take pride in their community—if not identity—with the Americans. When President Johnson applauded President Marcos as his “right arm in Asia,” there was some derisive reaction from nationalist quarters but, in the main, the people took it as a badge to wear proudly on their sleeves. GI Joe at Clark, at Mactan, at John Hay, at Subic and at Sangley, America’s military bases in the Philippines, remain a symbol of American protection. Herein lies the bigger Filipino problem.

Legacy of the West

Too many Filipinos are given to dodging their responsibilities, running to others for help when they should be on their own feet. This, too, is a legacy of the West. The writer Renato Constantino has put it well: “As a people, we have been deprived for centuries of responsibilities for our destiny. Under the Americans, while ostensibly we were being prepared for self-government, for self-reliance, actually we were being maneuvered by means of political and economic pressures to defer to American decisions (and) being conditioned by our American education to prefer American ways.’’ The result is a people habituated to abdicating control over basic areas of their national life, unaccustomed to coming to grips with reality, prone to escape into fantasies.

Some conjecture that a more tragic fate might have overtaken the Filipinos if Spain had not stumbled upon them in 1521—a fate perhaps, some shudder, like that which befell Indonesia, Indochina, or the Congo. There is nothing to support this speculation; the fact is, the navigator Fernando Magallanes found on these islands well-ordered societies with their own culture. He was slain on Mactan island by a Filipino, Lapu-Lapu, the first Asian to fight and defeat a Western invader. But the Spanish king and Cortez were bent on empire and, in historian Arnold Toynbee’s words, “The Philippines was held for Spain by a handful of soldiers, administrators, and friars after the fashion of the Spanish empire of the Indies.”

With the cross and the sword, Spain stamped out the native culture, commerce and government. The people’s codes and laws, their weights and measures, their literature and even their alphabet were destroyed. There were, of course, periods in Spain’s 377 years of domination when liberal governors ruled, but in the main, Spanish rule was oppressive. No less than two hundred revolts marked the Spanish rule; the last—the Katipunan Revolution of 1896—finally broke Spain’s reign with American military help.

Frying pan into the fire

Filipino jubilation was short-lived, however. A republic was proclaimed by the victorious revolutionaries on June 12, 1898, but the Spanish-American War had already cast its shadow over the Filipino destiny. In the Treaty of Paris of 1898, defeated Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States for $20 million over vociferous but futile Filipino protests. “The Filipino freedom fighter,” comments Toynbee, “now found that they had fallen out of the frying pan into the fire.”

From the very beginning, Washington officials denied any ambition of empire. They rationalized their Pacific acquisition as a humane and civilizing job. President McKinley, so it is recorded, dropped on his knees and prayed to God for guidance. “And one night,” he said, “it all came to me this way—that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

Hokum or truth? A good number of Filipino patriots rejected America’s proclaimed benevolence and kept up the guerrilla fight for independence not only in the mountains but also in their newspapers and literature. In their struggle, they drew moral backing from diverse foreign powers including Imperial Japan, which gave sanctuary to fleeing Filipino rebels.

After “pacifying” the islands (except the hinterlands of Muslim Mindanao), America set out to refashion the Filipinos. In this there was method as well as design. American teachers came first, followed by American missionaries, then by American public officials. So successful were they that the Filipinos were soon thinking, acting, and living American. And so proud was the United States, it was soon calling the country America’s “showcase of democracy” in Asia. The Filipinos liked the label too, such had been the degree of their Americanization. Filipinos, indeed, have much to thank the United States for. With “the happiness, peace and prosperity” of the Filipinos as the official colonial policy, America gave the Filipinos a new language, schools, free trade, government and laws. It strove to curb disease. It also gave the Filipinos a vigorous journalism, something Filipinos point to with pride. Branded as irresponsible at times, the Philippine press nonetheless has been the unofficial loyal opposition, the strongest deterrent to unbridled graft. And most important, perhaps, the United States kept the regionalistic and volatile Filipinos from breaking up.

Mentor’s neuroses

What if the United States had not come and the First Republic in 1898 had not been aborted? Philippine Ambassador to Washington Salvador P. Lopez, who, as foreign secretary, charted the Philippines’ dramatic turn away from the United States and back toward Asia, answered “... the Philippines would have developed a political system resembling, on the one hand, the self-perpetuating oligarchies of Latin America and, on the other the ‘guided democracy’ of Indonesia. In addition, the young republic would have been confronted almost immediately by challenges to its authority, in particular by serious separatist movements in the Visayas and in Moslem Mindanao and Sulu.” American colonial rule, he affirmed, moderated all these and permitted a new “Philippine society to develop along more democratic lines.”
What the United States fashioned, in fact, is a democratic plural society, a society that finds unity in its diversity. It is a society, some say, as American as the United States itself. It may not have the dollars, but it certainly has the tastes and habits, the wheelings and dealings, the idiosyncracies and neuroses of its recent mentor. And it is —or has been—committed four-square to America, to what America stands for—more than the United States itself, perhaps. In its anticommunism, for example, Manila is more rigid than Washington.

In three wars, the Philippines has stepped forward and fought with the United States—against the Japanese in the epic holding battles of Bataan and Corregidor, against the North Koreans and Communist Chinese in Korea, against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese now. Clearly, President Marcos voiced the Filipino sentiment when he explained why he brought the Philippines into the Viet Nam war: because, he said, the United States was already in the fray.

Increasingly, however, there are signs of disaffection from the United States. Where it was almost unthinkable to criticize America 10 years ago, more and more Filipinos speak out today against the Americans, if not America itself. The change is seen in anti-American demonstrations and in the search for new partners in Asia and in Europe. Behind it, too, is a renaissance of Filipino nationalism and a growing awareness of where the country is—in Asia. But the main reason is the failure of the United States —in Filipino eyes—to give meaning to the vaunted special relationship; American performance falls short of the promise.

Built-in strings

In this atmosphere, the negative aspects of US policy are surfacing. Approval of parity—equal rights for Americans in the exploitation of Philippine natural resources—is now seen as imposed by the United States on a people left prostrate by World War II, as a condition for American War-damage funds. “The net effect of parity,” Education Undersecretary Onofre Corpus warned the United States, “has been an erosion of the Filipinos’ belief in the United States’ capacity for fair dealing with her friends and allies.”

Filipinos in growing numbers now believe that the independence granted by the United States in 1946 had built-in strings designed to perpetuate American economic dominance—or “colonialism,” as the ultra-nationalists call it. And they point to the trade agreement which has kept the Philippines a supplier of raw materials for American’s mills and a market for American goods. Of course, the onerous provision of the original agreement was rewritten in the Laurel-Langley pact of 1956, but very few Filipinos understand this refinement.

A few Filipino ultra-nationalists, well-positioned and very articulate, would sever all special relations with the United States, putting the Philippines on the path of non-alignment. This of course, is foolhardy. With the nuclear-armed and power-minded Communist China casting a covetous shadow over all of free Asia, the Philippines needs the United States more than ever; the only other choices left to her are to go Red or fall dead.

One truth persists here: the Philippines like the rest of Free Asia, needs America’s continued military presence in the area. Like the others, she needs America as a dam and shield against the Chinese Communists. This need has never been more urgently felt than since President Johnson’s dramatic announcement at the end of March and the beginning of negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Will the United States pull out, as the French and the British have done? This is the common fear of free Asians. For the Filipinos, with a million Chinese unassimilated in their midst, it is more than a fear; it is a spectre.

Breaking the fetters

The Philippines today needs to make bold efforts to break away from the fetters of the past. She must review and revise her so-called special relationships with the United States, taking into account the world as it is, and ceasing to live on the myths and heroics that so welded and so sustained her in the past. The Filipinos ask simply for dignity in their relations with the United States and equality with others in the American-led community of nations. They resent the fact that Japan, a former enemy, has obtained more from the United States than has the Philippines, and that Spain, a totalitarian state, has a more favorable military bases agreement with the United States.

The Filipinos must purge, now and with finality, the cause of their past shame: US puppetry. What they must seek is partnership with the United States, not wardship. If a fresh viability can be forged out of the old tissues of past kinship, so much the better. But this should be farthest from both the Filipino and American minds. A New Spirit must be infused into the Filipino and American relations of today. And it must be applied to the new mutual defense and military bases agreements. These are the main problems that have vexed Filipino-American relations so much in the sixties; approached with a fresh outlook, they could yield a more durable Filipino-American relationship.

Happily, despite the growing swell of anti-American criticism in the Filipino press, there is no hatred for whites on the islands. This is because, it would seem, Americans neither tyrannized nor brutalized the Filipinos in their 48-year rule. In fact, Filipinos, in the main, fondly remember the Big Brother gestures and kindnesses of the GI who liberated the islands in 1945. Out in the country especially, the Americano is still as much a symbol of help, friendship and good will as ever. As before, this is a good augury.

Much to be done

There is much to be done at home. In addition to breaking away from America’s economic dominance, the Filipinos themselves must outgrow the colonial attitude which now impedes the modernization process. Fortunately, there are many latent forces which can be energized. Anyone who has lived in the Philippines will attest to the flexibility of the Filipinos and, most of all, to their great social mobility. There is, on the whole, an openness in the society, the creation no doubt of the egalitarian ideals of the Revolution of 1896 that have slowly seeped into the whole fabric of Philippine life during the last six decades. And this can be ascribed to the public school system which the Americans installed but which the Filipinos have molded to fit their own psyche and needs. We have, after all, been having democratic elections since 1911; many governments have come and gone without the chaos and bloodshed of revolutions and coups d’etat.

There are perhaps more trained technicians in the Philippines today than anywhere else in Southeast Asia, but the industrial growth that can absorb these technicians has not come. Moreover, the Philippines’ natural resources are among the richest in Southeast Asia, yet we are fast falling behind such countries as Malaysia and Taiwan in industrial development. Here, again the oligarchs must be made to move, to invest, to industrialize. They can be captains of industry, but instead they have elected to dig in their heels on the land.

Stirring the entrenched oligarchs into accepting the urgency of land reform is also one of the aims of the younger leadership which wants the Philippines to surge upward. Up to now, however, forces of reaction have made government efforts in this direction largely meaningless. What a few years ago was a mere revolution of rising expectations has grown to the point where some fear revolution itself. It could be sparked, not by the left, the communist-inspired Huk ideologue, but by the disillusioned, depressed and dejected educated unemployed. Clearly, the Filipino elite—the corrupt and corrupting, the irresponsible and unresponsive old leadership—must face up to the need for reform or be swept away.

The new-generation Filipino must also shake and awaken the Catholic Church, which has long ignored the need for social reform and become flabby in its position of revered irrelevance. Because the Church has grown remote from the masses, quasi-religious fanatics have banded together and prospered in the countryside. Last year 31 of them—members of the Lapiang Malaya (Freedom Party) sect—were slaughtered when they demonstrated in Manila and charged the constabulary dispatched to contain them. This was as much a failure of the Church as of the government.

The government itself must be made to respond to the demands of the middle class for a mass market. The archaic and regressive tax structure must be revamped. The wealth that the oligarchy rapaciously covets and hoards must get down to the masses in the form of roads, bridges and schools; these are what the tao understands as good or bad government.

Where salvation lies

Philippine democratic institutions, President Marcos feels, are on trial. “And they may not,” he has warned, “have a second chance to prove and sustain themselves.” The Filipino, he stressed, “must realize his salvation lies with himself.” With this, the opposition cannot disagree. Indeed, great dedication and great labor are demanded of the new Filipino.

All these are Filipino aspirations and frustrations that the Americans must clearly understand. It is they, after all, to whom the Filipinos have always turned for guidance and assistance. In handling the Philippine problem, it will be well for the United States to remember that methods and postures that have repeatedly failed in contemporary Asia cannot any longer work in the new Philippines either. Equally, the Filipinos will do well to keep in mind that invoking the dead—if epic—past will no longer work in this age of rapid revolution. For them sentimentally to rest their future and fortune on the special Filipino-American bonds and other myths of the past is likely to be fatal.

Let the sunshine in


By Dean Tony La Viña | Posted on August 21, 2012
Manila Standard Today (online version)
http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/08/21/let-the-sunshine-in/

If solar energy is held as the poster child of the renewable energy initiative, it has also attracted criticisms. As I have earlier explained in this energy series, the first criticism is the proposed cost-per-kilowatt-hour Feed-in-Tariff rate of solar energy, which the Energy Regulatory Commission has now pegged at P9.68 (lowered from the last-proposed P14.65), is perceived to be higher than the rates Filipino consumers pay for power.

That perception already exposes flaws in that argument against solar production. Just to recap: consumers don’t pay the FiT outright, the rate they pay is computed based on production and distribution costs plus the consumer base served; depending on the production mix each distributor purchases, the solar-FiT rate averages out with inputs from lower-rate technologies like fossil fuels into the final cost consumers pay; and solar-FiT, or the investments for solar power infrastructure, is living with a known fixed cost over time, compared to gambling with the volatile variable, historically upward-trending cost of fossil fuels. Coupled with the other benefits of solar energy, the scales should be tipped towards letting the sun shine on Philippine energy policy.

The immediately-appreciable benefits of solar―zero emissions, essentially free (though intermittent) fuel supply―are well-understood and need not be repeated. We focus instead on the Philippines’ surprising suitability for solar power generation.

Even considering the heavy rain which have all but washed out Luzon the first two weeks of August, on average the Philippines gets enough sunlight to provide around 4.5-5.5 kWh per square meter per day, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. One of the benefits of the tropics, compared to latitudes closer to the poles, is the longer duration of sunlight, both within the day and across the year, boding well for sustained solar energy production.

The other key advantage of the Philippines is its specialization in electronics, and its potential for the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) cells, the basic unit of solar electricity. In fact, we are well-poised to be a power player in solar power, argued a 2008 Bloomberg Businessweek article, considering that the country hosts the manufacturing plants for SunPower and Solaria, a well-educated and flexible engineering workforce, and a strong electronics background―for solar cell export. Both boasted of the ingenuity of its Filipino engineers in making PV cells more efficient and affordable to manufacture. All that’s needed, the article continues, is to encourage a local market for PV cells, for domestic consumers to purchase solar energy.

PV cells lend themselves to easy deployability and distribution. On the industrial scale, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, Renewable Energy Developers Center, and WWF Philippines argue that solar plants are faster to throw up than their fossil fuel equivalents: a 1-MW plant within six weeks, or an Italian 70-MW affair in nine months, compared to at least three years for a coal plant. At the user end, PV cells can be quickly and easily set up in a day or two, through the use of increasingly affordable home/rooftop solar energy kits, or integrated into the architecture of new and existing buildings in urban areas. Already this series had touched on solar’s deployment to power isolated and detached communities. It is not too labor or investment-intensive, apart from the costs of PV cells themselves (and again, increasing use generally decreases costs), to embed solar energy onto the already-existing Philippine electrical infrastructure.

On that note, further governance incentives to mainstream solar energy can ensure its place in the Philippines’ energy agenda. Allies as politically diverse as Bayan Muna’s Rep. Teddy Casiño and Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Manuel Villar are pushing solar in their respective legislative agendas, to extend financial incentives and loan assistance from government institutions to promote homeowner and end-user solar energy. Right now, we as a country are too familiar and comfortable with fossil fuel energy, even as we bemoan oil and coal prices; perhaps these legislative initiatives, if passed, will be the proverbial kick out of the nest for a fledgling Filipino solar market.

In defiance of its critics, solar energy is not the cost-burden, exotic, before-its-time bugaboo that should be warily approached. Rather, solar energy is surprisingly flexible, readily deployable, can be made affordable, a perfect fit for the Philippines―if we act now. Even the savings alone from the reduced need to import oil and coal to fuel power plants (at the producer level), or end-user solar energy production reducing household energy budgets, and the need to purchase electricity from the grid, justifies taking that first step towards sunlight. Yet that first step, to reiterate a theme of this series, can radically transform the energy sector and even Filipino lives.

Let solar light the way for the Philippines’ renewable energy agenda, and its future.

2012/08/19

Health Advocates Push For Carbon Emission Standards At Coal Plants

From Illinois Progress (Blog)
By: Ellyn Fortino Friday May 25th, 2012


The Environmental Protection Agency held a hearing Thursday regarding the first of its kind limits on carbon dioxide emissions for new power plants.

News of the EPA’s proposed standards for power-plant emissions comes shortly after Midwest Generation announced Chicago’s two infamous coal-fired power plants, Frisk and Crawford, will shut down. Progress Illinois reported last month about Chicago’s power-plant saga.

Double lung-transplant recipient Dan Dolan-Laughlin, 65, is one of many people who planned to speak at the hearing to urge the EPA to follow through with its carbon-regulation proposal.


Dolan-Laughlin, of Wheaton, had to wear a mask while traveling to the hearing, because he received his new lungs six months ago, and they are sensitive to all forms of pollution.

He’s one of many people across the state and country whose health depends on clean air.

“Anyone with (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is so incredibly sensitive to air pollution,” Dolan-Laughlin said.

While living with COPD, Dolan-Laughlin couldn’t walk downtown because of the pollution. On high smog-alert days he wouldn’t leave his house.

It’s not only the coal-fired power plants contributing to high smog levels -- which used to trigger his asthma attacks -- but regulating new power plants is a first step toward better air quality, Dolan-Laughlin said.

“The coal plants account for 40 percent of the pollution in the air right now, and that’s a lot,” he said. “It’s something that can be controlled.”

Peter Iwanowicz, vice president of the American Lung Association and the director of the Healthy Air Campaign, said the American Lung Association, which testified at the hearing, is encouraged the EPA is moving forward with standards that will lead to the future cleanup of dirty power.

“For us, we see power plants as a real killer -- quite literally,” Iwanowicz said.

Carbon emissions contribute to rising temperatures, and rising temperatures cook the pollution that’s already in the atmosphere. That process increases ozone levels, or smog, which can cause asthma attacks, other health complications or even premature death, Iwanowicz said.

If the EPA standards are approved, power plants built in the future would not be allow to emit more than 1,000 pounds of carbon pollution for each megawatt of electricity produced—that’s about half of what some current power plants are pumping out, he said.

That standard could be lower, Iwanowicz said, but it’s a good start.

Susan Buchanan, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, said this rule is “desperately needed.”

“It may be too little too late at this point,” she said. “I’m a little frustrated that this rule applies to new plants and not to plants that are already operating.”

The current operating plants should have to abide by the same standards as the new plants, she said.

She added now is the time for carbon-emission regulation.

“Climate change is going to be one of the big challenges in public health in the 21st century,” Buchanan said, adding that droughts and changes in food production and more heat-related stress and deaths will occur because of climate change, among public health concerns.

Throughout the week, the American Lung Association’s volunteers have been walking around the downtown area, pushing red baby carriages. The baby carriages signify what’s at stake if the U.S. doesn’t come up with a power-plant solution, Iwanowicz said.

The EPA is held a hearing on the issue in Washington, D.C. the same day.

The EPA is also accepting written comments on the proposed standards until June 25, 2012, according to their web site.