Advisory: "Sampol" of endo lords demanded in end endo caravan today

Power crisis real, strategic but gov’t doing mere quick fix – labor coalition

NEWS RELEASE

NAGKAISA

28 November 2014

  

The emerging power crisis is a cruel outcome of a bad policy under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) that cannot be resolved by the proposed emergency power President Aquino is seeking from Congress, the labor coalition Nagkaisa said in a statement.

The group said it is not common for ordinary workers to comment on techno-economic aspects of the power industry, but for this coming celebration of Bonifacio Day on November 30, labor will come out loud on this along with other big issues because the high cost of power in the country is making the lives of ordinary workers more miserable.

According to Wilson Fortaleza, spokesperson for Partido Manggagawa (PM) and one of the convenors of Nagkaisa,  “this quick-fix solution via an emergency power to address a decade-old problems of escalating rates and diminishing supply reignited labor’s apprehension that once again, a power crisis is being transformed into business opportunity for the private sector.”

Fortaleza was referring to the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) and power contracting being pursued through a joint resolution in Congress that would grant the President emergency powers to address the expected power shortage in 2015. 

He said the ILP can be pursued by the Department of Energy (DoE) even without the President exercising emergency powers because it is merely a demand-side management issue and not production of additional generating capacity as required under Section 71 of EPIRA.  

"Likewise, the foreign and privately-operated National Grid Corporation must first be made to account for its primary responsibility to secure reliable supply, including sufficient reserve capacities,"argued Fortaleza.

The group explained that the ILP is a mode for utilizing standby power or embedded generating capacity available in several establishments such as malls and commercial buildings. During shortage, their utilization means an x amount of freed megawatt capacity that can be supplied by Meralco to other users. 

Fortaleza, however, said that for this alone an emergency power is not needed.  So why is Malacanang asking for it?  The group can only think of the following scenarios:

    §  Under the ILP enrollment is voluntary but enrollees will be compensated to incentivize their             participation

    §  But because there is no system currently in place to exactly determine the price  of compensation,             imposing a universal levy – an x amount per kWh to be charged to consumers take-or-pay  – is             the most likely scheme.

    §  Retail electricity suppliers (RES) who already posses contracted capacities under the open access             (but which they cannot supply to their contestable market because most of them are also ILP             players) will also be compensated.

     

     These, in effect, will result to rate increases.   But Fortaleza insists that a take-or-pay levy cannot be charged to consumers under ILP since embedded generation sets were designed or were practically built by industry players to address expected and non-expected outages.

“So why do we have to pay them for that temporary sacrifice?  And why will Henry Sy, John Gokongwei and Jaime Ayala charge an x amount per kWh from everyone, including non-mall users?”

The group argued further that the only valid excuse for utilizing emergency powers is when the government  goes back to generation, stop industry fraud, and makes a decisive shift to renewable energy and energy democracy.

PM slams richest Filipinos as kings of contractualization

Press Release

June 24, 2011

In reaction to the news about the richest Filipinos on the Forbes list of billionaires, the militant Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) called the top three—Henry Sy, Lucio Tan and John Gokongwei—as “kings of contractualization.” Renato Magtubo, PM national chair, argued that “While Forbes asserts that the booming stock market has increased the wealth of the richest Filipinos, we believe that their base income is the windfall profit from contractualization. Their flagship companies, SM of Henry Sy, Philippine Airlines (PAL) of Lucio Tan and Robinsons Malls of Gokongwei, are well-known as exponents of contractual employment and labor outsourcing.”

Gerry Rivera, president of the Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) and vice chair of PM, stated that Tan has become the second wealthiest Filipino by outsourcing and other violations of labor rights. “Despite the bountiful fruits of production, Lucio Tan as owner of PAL refuses to share with his workers through a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and plans to squeeze even more profit from employees through contractualization,” he declared.

“As these rich Filipinos grow fat from contractualization, workers wages and benefits are getting thin in proportion,” insisted Magtubo. Magtubo and Rivera both called on President Benigno Aquino III to support the security of tenure (SOT) bill pending in Congress in his forthcoming State of the Nation speech.

PM and PALEA are supporting the bill that seeks to regulate the rampant practice of contractual employment and promises to be as controversial as the RH bill once it is tabled for plenary debates. The SOT bill has been passed by the House Labor Committee and is due to be scheduled for second reading in Congress.

Rivera added that “But $2.8 billion in wealth is not enough for Lucio Tan. The mother of all outsourcing scheme is in the offing, with 2,600 employees to be laidoff and made contractuals in SkyLogistics and SkyKitchen which are owned by Manny Osmena but, as journalist Raissa Robles pointed out in her expose, is just fronting for Lucio Tan. Further PAL wants an indefinite CBA moratorium on top of the 12-year suspension in negotiations. So while PAL workers have not been able to improve their wages and benefits via a new CBA, Lucio Tan’s pockets have been bulging.”

 “All through the years that PAL was losing, Lucio Tan has been getting richer. His get-rich-quick formula is nothing else but to cheapen labor costs by outsourcing the profitable units of PAL to third-party providers, such as Lufthansa Technik and MacroAsia, in which he has a stake,” Rivera explained.