Pay your debts

"Some ripples can feel like tidal waves. "

When billionaire businessmen with ambitious plans for growth as well as carefully cultivated reputations for philanthropy run afoul of government, the ripples they create can feel like tidal waves.

Consider the case of San Miguel’s chief honcho, Ramon S. Ang (RSA). His company owns South Premiere Power Corporation (SPPC), which, among other things, administers the huge Ilijan gas-fired power generation plant in Batangas City. Like many other power plants, Ilijan was acquired from government in a privatization conducted by the government-owned Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM).

Various monies are still due and payable to PSALM from that transaction, and the total ain’t small. To be exact, according to Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez, who serves as PSALM chairman, the total is P19.8 billion. That’s the highest owed to PSALM by any single debtor. It’s equivalent to one-third of the total amount of P59.2 billion owed to this GOCC by all independent power producer administrators (IPPAs), electrical cooperatives, and other private sector entities combined.

Sec Sonny is incensed because PSALM has been borrowing heavily to repay its own indebtedness. Last year it borrowed about P23 billion at a cost of nearly P3 billion in interest and charges. This year it expects to borrow another USD 1.1 billion by the end of May. Without the P19.8 billion hole left in its pocket by San Miguel and Ilijan, PSALM could have substantially reduced last year’s borrowings and interest expense—all of which by the way is guaranteed by the national government itself.

There’s two sides to every story, of course. In this case, Mr. Ang insists that government has miscalculated the size of his company’s obligations to PSALM. And when PSALM issued termination orders against Ilijan in 2015, San Miguel was able to secure an injunction from the Mandaluyong RTC.

But Sec Sonny remains adamant. “All these borrowing costs could have otherwise been utilized by the Government for the construction of public school classrooms or to build roads and bridges,” he says. Indeed, P3 billion of interest savings could have built a whole heck of a lot of new infra for the country.

This whole situation needs to be cleared up immediately—for the benefit of government, which can use the fiscal savings, as well as the benefit of Mr. Ang, who’s in the thick of launching so many ambitious new projects that depend on the goodwill of government as his partner, regulator, and/or counterparty.

It’s the people who need to come out on top of all of this.

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Maria Ressa’s Rappler reports that income inequality among the country’s regions has widened from 2009 to 2018, according to NEDA.

In the National Capital Region (NCR), regional GDP per capita reached P253,893 in 2018, a 40-percent jump from 2009. By contrast, the poorest region, ARMM, registered only P14,657 in 2018, hardly unchanged from its 2009 level of P14,052.

NEDA Undersecretary Adoracion Navarro disclosed that the regions with very low GDP are also those with large agricultural bases. This only highlights the importance of improving agricultural productivity, which ironically has even suffered from the inefficiencies of land reform Philippine-style.

USec Navarro added that low-GDP regions like ARMM and Caraga also had the highest population growth rates, prompting her to call for greater LGU support for family planning and RH programs. This of course is the old “population growth is bad” argument, which I thought had already been trashed by our country’s recent record of demographically-driven economic growth and competitiveness.

In order to address this problem of regional inequality, the USec said that government is now pouring cash into infrastructure and social services. But hasn’t government in fact already been doing that for decades, albeit to various degrees depending on who was sitting in Malacañang?

NEDA’s prescriptions are textbook, but beg the obvious question: Who is in a better position to decide what is best for a region, and then implement it—the region itself, or some panjundrum based in Manila?

Who is in a better position to—as NEDA prescribes—“improve connectivity between regions, improve productivity of small farmers, promote agricultural diversification, enhance the competitiveness of local SMSEs, improve access to social services, strengthen disaster resiliency”?

Ask any governor or mayor who has had to make the pilgrimage to NEDA, as well as other Manila-based national government agencies, with his hat in hand, begging for support for a new hospital, or more classrooms, or whatever new project he deems urgent for his province or town. And even if he’s lucky enough to get an OK, how long did he have to wait for the project to break ground.

If asked about the alternative solution of federalism, NEDA bureaucrats will answer that there’s no proof it would work. Which again begs the obvious question: Well, how does your own record look so far? The Rappler story isn’t encouraging at all.

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In today’s Gospel (John 17: 1-11), Jesus closes His discourses over the Last Supper by bidding farewell to His disciples: “…The hour has come…And now I will no longer be in the world.” Then He commends them to the care of His Father above: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.”

Decades later, as recounted in the reading from Acts 20: 17-27, Paul also bids farewell to his Christian converts in Ephesus: “I know that none of you to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels will ever see my face again.” But he too, like Jesus, also bids them a fare thee well: “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers.”

This final week of the Easter season is bracketed by two halves of the Divine message. Last Ascension Sunday, God as Jesus left us. But this coming Pentecost Sunday, God as the Paraclete rejoins us.

Every parting from Jesus can only be temporary. By our love for Him and for His flock, He continues to abide in us. And by the example of our own faith, we continue to win converts to the Kingdom whose work on earth is still unfinished, until He returns.

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