Amendment of the PSA remains unacted
by the Senate
By Mortz C. Ortigoza
Amendment to 100 % foreign or
Filipino the ownership of a business utility in the Philippines can solve the
Filipinos unemployment problem as it will open the economy to more investors.
So who says that Federalism is the
economic silver bullet?
It’s the amendment of the
Public Service Acts (PSA), dimwit, that until now the Senators procrastinate to pass so
President Rodrigo Duterte can sign it into law.
The present PSA or otherwise
known as Commonwealth Act No. 146 covers all types of common carriers, be
it by land, air or water, water supplies and systems, petroleum, electricity,
communications systems and even broadcasting stations.
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| Tycoons in the Philippines where 14 of them joined the richest people in the world according to Forbes Magazine's Richest People in the Planet for 2017. Photo Credit: Cebu Properties. |
It is where utilities have been
mandated by law to be averagely 60 percent owned by Filipino or Filipinos
despite the thick pockets of the foreign partners who sulked themselves to
settle for the 40 % of the voting stocks.
Because of this seemingly xenophobic
equity, foreign investors go instead to Mainland China, Singapore, Thailand,
Vietnam, and other South East Asian countries.
If the House of Representatives passed the PSA in September
last year, why the Mabagal na Mataas na Kapulungan or Slow Senate as derisively called by
Speaker Panty Alvarez until now sits on it?
Is it because its campaign time
for the May 13, 2019 poll for re-elective senators like Grace Poe, Cynthia
Villar, Nancy Binay, Sonny Angara, Koko Pimentel, Bam Aquino, and JV Ejercito
where they have to crisscross the country in an expensive hundreds of millions
of pesos stump where they need radio and television advertisement?
Do they need badly the monies
and aircraft of these corporations being affected by the amendment of the PSA?
Here’s what I wrote before on
the lobbies that made our senators corrupt at the impoverishment
of the Filipinos.
The indifference of Congress to
amend this old law (PSA) was suspected to be influenced by the lobby monies of
big businesses primordially owned by the local oligarchs whose clout run deep
in the recently mentioned industries that made them even the globally richest
individuals as published by Forbes Magazine on its 500 Richest People in the
World.
Their control of these
industries cost a gaping trade imbalance of US $4.72 billion in the Philippines
last year.
Based on December 2017 data,
the country has US$ 4.72 billion export versus the US$ 8.74 billion import
according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
This growing trade imbalance
helped weakened the exchange rate and spikes the prices of goods and services
at the expense of poor Filipinos.
READ MY OTHER ARTICLE:
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When I opined at Face Book the order of President Rodrigo Rodrigo Duterte to the Department of Labor & Employment to convene the Wage Boards in the various regions in the country to increase the minimum wages, I cited that the spikes will only make the employers’ recoup their expenses for the wages from the masses – their end users.
My wife then posed to me:
“Paano iyong mga pokpok (prostitutes, harlot, and whore), Marcelo (psst my real name son of a gun!), magtataas din sila ng presyo?”
Surprised, I gave her my following answers:
1) The vaunted Pokpok Pricing System will not go with the weakening of the peso versus the U.S Dollar, or the spike of petroleum from $80 per barrel to the $100 per barrel Saudi Arabia and Russia want to happen;
2) According to friends at the squatter area when I quaffed beer with them, an 18 to 30 years old prostitute in Dagupan City could peg at P500 but if a customer knows the trade, he could avoid the pimp (bugaw) and transact directly with the pokpok for P250 to P300 in three hours short time at a motel where he would either be paying P250 for an airconditioned room, P180 for a room ventilated by an electric fan, or P80 for no ventilation at all.
