MANILA, 4 June — Suffering from the effects of the global economic slowdown that stunted exports growth in the first quarter, the Philippine economy got another severe beating from a group of bandits who kidnapped 17 Filipinos and three Americans at a resort in Palawan, south of Manila, recently. Foreign media has been closely following the latest kidnapping case in the country, which is expected to scare away prospective foreign investors.
“This is very bad news, coming at a time when the economy is starting to turn around despite the global slowdown. This will definitely hurt the tourism industry, and most especially investments,” an official of a securities company said. The same source said major investors are not expected to leave the country. However, they would closely watch how government handles the hostage-taking issue, and how the Arroyo administration would implement the structural reforms needed to improve the country’s business climate.
President Arroyo asked members of Congress to hold a four-day special session last week to approve the Malacanang-sponsored Electric Power Reform Act. Both houses of Congress willingly gave in to the president’s request. In fact, they dutifully approved their respective versions of the proposed bill, prompting opposition senators to question what they called the ‘railroading’ or hasty approval of the controversial Electric Power Reform Act.
For a while, it looked like members of Congress would outdo themselves this time and forget politics to be able to pass this important piece of legislation. So much depends on the proposed measure, not the least of which is the fate of reforms to the power sector. A new power reform law would facilitate the release of at least $950 million in loans from a number of multilateral lending institutions, including the Asian Development Bank. It will also break up the monopoly of existing power suppliers in the country and pave the way for the privatization of the government-owned National Power Corporation (Napocor).
For a while, it looked like the proposed Electric Power Reform Act, which has been under scrutiny for six years by members of two congresses, would finally see the light of day.
Most everyone thought the members of the 11th Congress could proclaim in unison that they helped restructure the power industry and made the Philippines one of the first countries in the region to follow the worldwide trend of restructuring the power industry. To no avail. Members of the bicameral committee, who were expected to come up with a unified version of the proposed bills from the House of Representatives and the Senate, failed to do their job.
Members of the House of Representatives could not be faulted for the failed exercise. At 4 a.m. on June 1, 2001, the last day of the special session, House members ratified a bicameral committee report on the Omnibus Power Sector Reform bill. Members of the House debated the bill the whole night and approved it before daylight with a vote of 131 in favor and 14 against. This would have assured the passage of the bill into law had the Senate done the same.
The proposed bill approved by the House of Representatives provides that Napocor will be privatized within five years, and that government would assume a portion of the financial obligations of Napocor, which is about 200 billion pesos. The government is expected to generate about $4.5 billion from the sale of Napocor.
In a press conference on the last night of the special sessions, Sen. John Osmena, author of the bill and chairman of the Senate panel to the bicameral conference committee, said the Senate could not approve its version of the bicameral conference committee report on the proposed measure because ‘insertions’ were made on the clean copy of what was supposed to be the Senate’s final version of the bill.
He said the Senate needs two more days to work on its ‘tampered’ version of the power reform bill. ‘We need more time. We will not be able to pass it in the special session. It (proposed power reform bill) will have to wait until next week in the regular session,’ the senator said. Osmena found out that the Senate technical working staff made changes in the final copy of the bill upon instruction of the technical working staff of the House of Representatives. He told reporters that whether the changes were substantial or not, they were still improper.
Despite the delay, Presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said the president was happy with the achievement of the four-day special sessions in Congress. “This shows that despite the problems we are facing, the president and members of Congress can still focus on pushing through with economic reforms,” Tiglao said.
