Uniffors- Life in Gloria’s Enchanted Kingdom

Winston Garcia of GSIS wants management change in Meralco because he wants to bring down electricity rates. That’s what everybody wants, lower electric bills.

At the same time, bringing down the rates charged by Meralco, while keeping generation and transmission costs unchanged, will bring down the profits of Meralco. That will affect the market value of it shares and its dividend pay-outs to stockholders like GSIS which is owned by government employees.

Business Mirror reported that GSIS started increasing its Meralco shares in 2007. In February 2007, GSIS owned 8.20 percent of Meralco. Garcia went on a buying spree and, by March 14, 2008, it owned 22.05 percent of the electric company.

Meralco is a good and safe investment. Or at least it was until Garcia started shooting his mouth off.

From April 21, 2008 to May 8, 2008, Meralco’s market value, has plunged resulting in a “paper loss” of 22.425 percent, P4.548 Billion, for GSIS.

Management is supposed to take care of its stockholders. Winston seems confused. Is he serving GSIS members or the consuming public? If he wants to cut Meralco’s profits, hence dividends and value of GSIS investments in it, because he feels bad for consumers, then he should dispose of Meralco shares. Then he can bad mouth Meralco, and become a consumer advocate. But it makes absolutely no sense to destroy a company where you hold a 22.05 percent stake.

Now, which management would you replace, Meralco’s or GSIS’s?

(UPDATE) May 8

This news report from the Daily Tribune says the Hanjin fiasco is over.

According to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has not obtained any evidence of bribery or extortion for the project.

Emano, in his affidavit, said there was no bribe offer on him nor was there any extortion attempt on Hanjin in exchange for the environmental clearance certificate on its shipyard facility in Misamis Oriental.

The Palace, however, denied it influenced the probe of the PNP to come out with a closure of the controversy.

So Hanjin never complained about extortion and Mayor Emano never reported bribery and DILG sec Ronaldo Puno never said, “The President was furious over these charges of extortion, galit na galit [she’s livid] . . . . The conflicting statements of the mayors and Hanjin officials on the charges of bribery and extortion are puzzling, to say the least.”

Huh?

Well, “huh?” is apprently the wrong question to ask.

The report quoted ES Eduardo Ermita,

“The important thing is — there is no more finger pointing about who did what… the mayors themselves already issued the order lifting their order to suspend the issuance of the permit, meaning Hanjin could pursue its investment… Yes, the issue is cleared.”

“Well, we can see that President Arroyo is really hands-on… So indeed the President had averted something that could have been messy if this was not looked into immediately so there’s an immediate action by the President.”

Hmmm….

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Gloria asked businessmen for support, Raul Gonzalez wants to charge Meralco for fraud over deposits for Meralco’s meters, Miriam wants Meralco nationalized, and Garcia wants to take over management of Meralco but Malacanan insists it is not after the electric company.

Press secretary Bunye said,

“Our support is not so much in the change of management. The stockholders and consumers need transparency.”

Bunye is telling the truth. Malacanan does not want Meralco. The government does not know how to manage a power company.

Malacanan is really after ABS-CBN. Gloria thinks the threat to Meralco will force the Lopezes to back down. She thinks one of Gabby Lopez’s uncles will tell him to rein in his network.

Of course, the added bonus of the blackmail is that it pretends Gloria cares about the cost of electricity and she’s on the side of the poor, those she continues to steal from.

One of these days, Malacanan will hit the owners of the Philippine Daily Inquirer by going after Mile Long, that real estate gold mine in Makati that they bought for a song ages ago.

Anyway, if it’s transparency Malacanan wants then it should set the example. Cut the crap.

He landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier anchored in the sea off San Diego, emerged in a fly-suit, strode to the microphone and announced: Mission Accomplished.

The world is still wondering exactly what it is the draft dodging chickenhawk accomplished.

In the article below, Erik Leaver of Foreign Policy in Focus enumerates what happens when chickenhawks go to war.
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Last Friday, speaking about the rice crisis to a Filipino business group advocating “Buy Pinoy-Buy Local,” Mrs. Arroyo announced there was no more need to import rice.

She said:

“I’ve seen this coming for some time now, certainly before the world took notice. That is why we were reaching out to Thailand and Vietnam for rice supply long before the headlines. So don’t be alarmed by today’s headlines — both Thailand and Vietnam and other neighbors elsewhere have already concluded contracts with us of 1.2 million metric tons — enough to cover the 10 percent differential between our production and our consumption.”

Her agriculture secretary, Arthur Yap, couldn’t restrain his joy:

“The summer harvest is coming in strong! We have enough supply through NFA’s trading activities; and we are focused on increased production in the wet season of 2008.”

So what the fuck was all that fuss about, those emergency billions to be spent on irrigation and fertilizers, the campaign against hoarders, the repacking of NFA rice, the distribution of rice cards, the military escorts for rice trucks and everything else she could shake a stick at?

Well, at least it distracted the public from the kidnapping and aborted liquidation of Jun Lozada.

And there were good photo ops of Gloria at “work” too.

The Ombudsman’s website says

The fundamental law of the land gives the Office of the Ombudsman the calling and badge of “Protector of the People”. This constitutional appellation captures the nature of its various functions: The Ombudsman protects the people from abuse and misuse of governmental power for personal aggrandizement.

Merceditas Gutierrez adds:

I should be feeling warm and fuzzy…

But I learned that THIS happened when Merceditas was acting Justice Secretary, after her boss Nani resigned:

On March 17, 2003, the Swiss prosecutor, through the Swiss embassy in Manila, informed the Philippine government of his initial findings on his investigation of the Perezes, Arceo and Escaler for allegedly violating his country’s Anti-Money Laundering Law by transferring a total of $1.7 million to a bank in Switzerland.

Ironically, the Philippines’ own Anti-Money Laundering Council did not investigate the Perezes and their associates.

The Ombudsman is going to investigate this associate?

I’ve been wondering why Gloria Arroyo was so hot about filing a case against smugglers she had to sit on the man who was supposed to file the case.

Yeah, she wants to show us she is doing something about smuggling pero sobra naman yata ang init niya.

There must be something else to it…. but I was not prepared to say “Eto(h) yun!”

Well here comes the old trapo, “Mr.Expose” to the rescue:

Customs whisper of the week. GMA went to the Bureau of Customs offices twice to press for the filing of charges against the importers of P30 million worth of wheat. Why? The whisper — the shipments belong to Vicky Toh, a friend of the First Gentleman.

Here’s a refresher on Vicky Toh and her friend.
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Agents of the Criminal Detection and Investigation Group serve warrant of arrest to former Justice Secretary Hernani Perez.

Malaya thinks he’s caught in the middle of a conjugal dispute

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The Freedom of Information Act may finally become a reality. This, hopefully, will be the flashlight on those cockroaches in Malacanan. This is important specially in the context of the Senate ZTE probe.

Below is the sponsorship speech of Rep. Erin Tanada.
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I would like to thank Msgr.Achilles Dakay of Cebu and Raul Gonzalez of Enchanted Kingdom for inspiring this article

Rectal rectitude

Cebu’s epitome of rectitude, Monsignor Achilles Dakay, said the rectal scandal, courtesy of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, was, at bottom, all about “the homosexual act that was done very badly.”

I had to ask my confessor, “Is the monsignor suggesting he knows a better way to stuff a can of body spray up a rectum?”

Now, I don’t want to be accused of taking the good priest’s words out of context, so here is his statement as reported in another paper:

“We are asking everyone not to forget or to bypass the main issue: The wrong act of a gay with another man,” Dakay said in an interview over the Church-run Radio Veritas. “People are not talking about what happened before the operation—the homosexual act that was done very badly.”

I still can’t tell whether he’s talking about morals or criticizing an insertion technique.

Anyway, something else Dakay said made me wonder about the mental health of his God, for he said, “We should sympathize with them because they were born that way and made that way, but if they did what is prohibited, then that is another thing.”

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