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Friday, March 29, 2024

Three lessons from ‘Ompong’

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Three things stood out in the aftermath of “Ompong,” one of the strongest typhoons to hit the Philippines in half a century.

One, infrastructure in this country is poor, inadequate, and grossly overpriced.

At an impromptu Cabinet meeting at the provincial capitol in Tuguegarao Sunday, Sept, 16, President Duterte complained about expensive plane fares and a serious shortage of boats, servicing the Manila-to-Davao route for instance. The X-ray machine in Tuguegarao conked out, rendering the facility useless for commercial use. Duterte ordered that all airports must have three to four spare X-ray machines.

Two, in times of disasters and calamities, there is nothing like the national government having what Duterte calls, “a human face there” at the local level.

Three, Duterte really needs to do something drastic about the rice shortage and the high prices of food items.

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So on Thursday, Sept. 13, a day before Ompong struck the north, Duterte forced the hesitant Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who is an Ibanag, to go to Cagayan, and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello, who is a second-generation Ilocano, to take charge in Isabela. Duterte’s marching orders: Save lives.

“It was a very wise decision,” gushed Tugade later, “when the local officials saw us, their resolve was strengthened because of the presence of national officials.”

To minimize damage and reduce casualties, Tugade executed what he called “preemptive information, preemptive communication, preemptive evacuation.” Anybody who resisted mandatory evacuation was threatened with arrest. It is not a human rights violation to force people out of danger areas, according to Rep. Joey Salceda, who as longtime Albay governor, initiated what he called “zero casualties” during typhoons and volcano disasters. He achieved it by sheer political will.

Except that some 100 small, if illegal, miners in the mining town of 60,000 people, Itogon, Benguet, had their own ideas. So when landslides slashed a 200-sqm gash on the side of the mountain, at least 59 died and 42 others were injured and scores more went missing Saturday afternoon. Another group of 70 hard-headed victims in Gonzaga town, Cagayan also resisted evacuation.

On poor infra and high-priced transportation, addressing Transportation Secretary Tugade, Duterte wondered in Tagalog, “the plane fares, who controls it? The airlines or we (the government)?” “The Philippines has one of the most expensive airline fares,” the President complained, “with the same distance, you can get it about $100, outside,” or half overseas.

In reply, Tugade lamely laid the blame on the Civil Aeronautics Board, which is under the DOTr, for its fare matrix that consists of fuel and the consumer price index which is a formula for surefire fare increases.

The Philippines, says Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, imports half of its energy requirements.

Crude oil went up, from an average of $52 per barrel in 2017 to an average of $69 this 2018, up $17 or 33 percent. The peso against the dollar went down, from P50.40 in 2017 to $54.20 this year, down P3.80 or 7.5 percent. Combined cost increases: 40.50 percent. Add the government’s fuel tax on diesel which went up this 2018, from zero to P2.50 per liter, and you have a price spiral.

According to Tugade, half of the cost of food items is transportation, if available.

Duterte is sad that there are no vessels plying the Batangas to Davao route. “There is something wrong there,” the President grimaced at the meeting. “For the small Filipino, there’s something terribly missing there. So we have to correct that. Ang kumikita, ang airlines [so the airlines are raking it in].” Tugade promised to talk to the shipping companies. He will offer them incentives to make the route profitable.

Dueterte is appealing to the airline and shipping companies: “Live and let live, tayo,” he pleaded. “Just maintain the equilibrium” between actual costs and pass-on rates.

On high prices, when Duterte took over as President in July 2016, inflation was a sheepishly low 1.3 percent per year. In August 2018, prices were jumping at the rate of 6.4 percent annually, a leap of 4.92 times or 3,920 percent. Ordinarily, a 3,920-percent bounce in inflation rates in three years and one month is what you call “galloping” but Budget Secretary Ben Diokno, who is an economist, calls the term irresponsible.

Inflation, by the way, has four movements—creeping, walking, galloping, and hyperinflation.

Jumping five times (4.92 times) your normal speed is certainly not walking. A horse gallops at 48 kms per hour, four times the average human marathoners (Usain Bolt excluded), 14 kph.

Perhaps Ben should do occasional marketing. He will find leeks selling for P600 a kilo and wansoy for P1,260 kilo. These are weeds, virtually. Can you imagine buying a kilo of grass for more than P1,000? Weeds are supposed to climb, not gallop.

Amazingly, Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol reported at the Sept. 16 meeting, “the price of rice is going down, from P2,400 per bag, to P2,000, in spite of what happened here (in the north).” The buying price of palay has gone down from P25 to P20, even P18, per kilo. “There was no rice shortage!”

Now, that’s what you call Pollyanna talk, a glad game you sell to the marines or giggling girls who don’t know any better.

Fortunately, Duterte knows bs when he hears one. He has fired the head, a retired general, of the state rice monopoly, National Food Authority, and will replace him, with another general. The President will also open up rice importation to anyone and everyone who offers the highest bid.

Now, that’s what you call preemptive action.

biznewsasia@gmail.com

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