SONA 2017: What’s in it for China in Duterte’s ‘Build, Build, Build’?

President Rodrigo Duterte with President Xi Jinping of China (Photo from Etienne Oliveau/Reuters, Aljazeera)

In his second State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Duterte as expected mentioned his grand infrastructure plan. There was special mention of China that Duterte said generously offered money for his “Build, Build, Build” program.

“If your Congress has no money, we will give you money” was what the Chinese supposedly told him, the President said in his speech.

Duterte in his SONA made the Chinese offer look like simple altruism and generosity. But in reality, on top of making Chinese imperialism appear benign, using soft power by bankrolling the country’s hard infrastructure profits China’s economy in various ways.

No debt crisis?

The concerns that Duterte’s infrastructure plan would result in a heavy debt burden are valid. After all, the price tag of what economic managers call as the “boldest infrastructure development program” in recent history is a whopping Php8 to 9 trillion.

Economic managers, however, assure the public that they have everything figured out. The plan is that government appropriations, not debt, will mainly fund the so-called “golden age of infrastructure”. The Finance department’s tax reform package aims to raise Php157 billion in additional revenues a year; the version passed by the House could generate Php130 billion.

At Php8 to 9 trillion, the annual cost of building infrastructure from 2017 to 2022 would be Php1.6 to 1.8 trillion. Clearly, the additional revenues from the tax package will not be enough even as it bleeds the poor dry.

In reality, the infrastructure program would be mostly debt-funded. But again, the public is being told that a debt crisis will not rear its ugly head. In fact, the Budget department expects that by the end of President Duterte’s term, the debt-to-GDP ratio would even fall to 38.1% from 40.6% in 2016.

Such optimism hinges on the economy not only sustaining its expansion but posting even more rapid growth. To outpace debt, the gross domestic product (GDP) must grow by 6.5 to 7.5% this year and 7-8% between 2018 and 2022.

It is tough to be as upbeat as administration officials given the structural weaknesses of the economy and amid a global crisis. For this year, debt watchers and creditors put Philippine GDP growth at 6.4 to 6.8% – below the range being hoped for by the economic managers. That’s the most bullish the projections could get.

Whatever rate the GDP grows by, the budget deficit is sure to increase as government ramps up infrastructure spending. The plan is to let the budget shortfall climb to 3% of GDP as infrastructure spending reaches as high as 7.4% of GDP.

While a bigger deficit means greater borrowing, there is supposedly no need to be anxious as the Budget department claims they will borrow in a fiscally sustainable way. Eighty percent of the deficit would be funded by domestic debt and only 20% foreign. Such borrowing mix lessens foreign exchange risks that could cause public debt to balloon.

Chinese and Japanese loans

But a review of what the Duterte administration has identified as its flagship infrastructure projects tells a different story. To be sure, the flagships – numbering 75 as of June – are just a fraction of the more than 4,000 infrastructure projects that government plans to do. They nonetheless represent the largest ones in terms of cost and are the top priorities for implementation.

Of the 75 flagship projects listed by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), 48 will be funded by foreign debt or official development assistance (ODA). Only 14 will be bankrolled through the national budget or General Appropriations Act (GAA). Just two projects are planned to be implemented via public-private partnership (PPP) while 11 have yet to be identified which mode to use.

As of June, only 53 out of the 75 flagships have estimated costs totaling PhpPhp1.58 trillion. Of the 53, 41 are ODA-funded projects worth Php1.40 trillion. The remaining Php181 billion would be funded through the GAA. In other words, almost 89% of the total cost of projects with already determined amounts will be paid for by foreign debt. (See Tables below)

Notes: ODA – Official Development Assistance; GAA – General Appropriations Act; PPP – public-private partnership; TBD – to be determined (Based on data from NEDA)

Just nine of the 41 ODA-funded flagship projects have identified donors/creditors, based on NEDA’s June list. These are Japan with three projects worth Php226.89 billion; China, three projects (Php164.55 billion); South Korea, two projects (Php14.06 billion); and World Bank, one project (Php4.79 billion).

The Chinese and Japanese are backing the Duterte administration’s largest mega-projects, an indication of how the two economic behemoths see “development cooperation” as one of the key arenas of their competition in the region. Japan is funding the Php211.46-billion PNR North 2 (Malolos-Clark Airport-Clark Green City Rail); Php9.99-billion Cavite Industrial Area Flood Management Project; and the Php5.44-billion Malitubog-Maridagao Irrigation Project, Phase II.

Meanwhile, China is bankrolling the Php151-billion PNR Long-haul (Calamba-Bicol); Php10.86-billion New Centennial Water Source – Kaliwa Dam Project; and Php2.70-billion Chico River Pump Irrigation Project.

Although not yet identified in the latest NEDA list, various media reports also link Chinese and Japanese loans to other big-ticket rail projects. These include the Php134-billion PNR South Commuter Line (Tutuban-Los Baños); the Php230-billion Manila Metro Line 9 (Mega Manila Subway Project – Phase 1); as well as the Mindanao Rail Project, of which the first phase (Tagum-Davao-Digos) costing Php35.26 billion will be funded via the GAA. (See Table below)

Source: NEDA

Download NEDA’s entire list here

Gains beyond interests

Over-reliance on debt is obviously problematic but by itself tapping concessional loans to build much needed infrastructure is not a wrong policy. Sadly, ODA is shaped not by genuine development cooperation but by the narrow agenda of lending governments and the corporate interests they represent. Thus, potential economic and social development gains for a borrowing country are greatly weighed down by bloated costs of ODA-funded infrastructure.

Big infrastructure lenders like China and Japan profit not only from the interests accruing from their loans to build rails and roads. The larger gains they make are from the conditionalities they tie to these loans such as requiring the Philippines to exclusively source from Chinese and Japanese firms the goods and services needed to build the rails and roads.

Lenders dictate the technology, design and construction of the infrastructure to accommodate their own suppliers and infrastructure firms. As such, Chinese and Japanese contractors are also favorably positioned to corner operation and maintenance contracts once the rail systems and other infrastructure are privatized under the Duterte administration’s hybrid PPP scheme.

Lastly, creditors also favor the development of infrastructure in areas where they have business interests. This explains the concentration of Japan-funded infrastructure in Central and Southern Luzon where export zones with Japanese investments are concentrated. China’s interest in building infrastructure in Mindanao is tied to its plantation and mining interests in the region.

All these make the cost of infrastructure development in the Philippines more expensive and the debt burden onerous. Tied loans for infrastructure development creates commercial opportunities for Japanese and Chinese companies that are otherwise not available to them. In China’s case, infrastructure lending in poor countries is even used to create employment for their own workforce at the expense of local labor.

At a time of prolonged global recession and slowdown in profit rates of the industrial economies, these opportunities become even more important. Alas, these opportunities only arise by undermining the debtor’s own development needs. ###

(This is a slightly revised version of an article first published as IBON Features)

Economy, Fiscal issues, Governance

Junking the Marcosian debt policy for people’s needs

Despite its trappings of reformist language, the Aquino administration’s budget proposals are still reflective of the same anti-people and anti-development policy thinking of the past regimes; and still emasculated by the Marcosian automatic debt servicing

Continued from Part 1

Until today, under post-Martial Law so-called democratic regimes, the Marcosian policy of automatic debt servicing and the heavy debt burden continue to cripple the capacity of government to provide sufficient social services and attend to the basic needs of the people. In an earlier research, think tank Ibon Foundation noted that Filipino taxpayers will continue to shoulder the Marcos debts until 2025, more than half a century since the late strongman imposed Martial Law.

The most controversial and biggest white elephant funded by Marcos debts and paid for by taxpayers was the $2.3-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). While we have already completed the payment for the BNPP that has never produced a single kilowatt of electricity, government continues to look for funding sources for the maintenance of the mothballed nuke plant.

These issues take more significance every time Congress prepares the national budget. Since taking over, the Aquino administration has been peddling the deception that unlike in the past, government’s priority now is the provision of social services and empowerment of the people through well-funded programs that directly benefit the poor. But as already noted, automatic payments for principal and interest continue to eat up the largest portion of public resources, including in the so-called 2013 “Empowerment Budget” of the Aquino administration.

Still way short

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) describes its proposed 2013 national budget as an “Empowerment Budget” because it supposedly heeds the people’s demand to ensure that government resources are used for their benefit. One indicator, said the DBM, is the increase in the budget allocation for social services, which will get the lion’s share of the proposed ₱2.006-trillion budget at 34.8%, up from last year’s 33.8 percent.

Of the proposed budget for social services (₱698.4 billion), the combined allocation for basic education, health and housing is pegged at ₱365.6 billion, which represent the proposed budget for the Education and Health departments, and government’s housing programs excluding those for the soldiers and police. But this amount is just about ¼ of the needed budget to reasonably meet the demands of the people for such services. Based on urgent needs as well as international standards, it is estimated that the budget for basic education, health and housing alone should be about ₱1.4 trillion. Of the said amount, basic education accounts for ₱885 billion (as estimated by the ACT Teachers); health, ₱440 billion (Coalition for Health Budget Increase or CBHI); and housing ₱ 97billion (Ibon).

Resources for social services

There are possible sources of funding for such huge needs of basic social services but it requires a substantial reorientation in government policies and shift in priorities. Based on the 2013 budget, for instance, there are some ₱860 billion that can be tapped, partially or wholly, to fund basic education, health and housing.

Of the said amount, the largest portion is comprised of the national government’s debt service burden, which is pegged at ₱782.2 billion for principal amortization and interest payments. The rest comes from programs and projects whose concept and/or expected benefits are disputed such as the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, public-private partnership (PPP), counterinsurgency-related initiatives, privatization obligations from past projects, and tourism promotion and development. (See Table 3)

Debt servicing still represents the biggest drain in the country’s already limited resources. Adding principal amortization to interest payments, debt servicing comprises almost 32% of what the Aquino administration is planning to spend in 2013. At ₱782.2 billion, debt servicing is bigger than the budget for all social services in the current budget proposal, pegged at ₱698.4 billion or 28% of the budget including principal amortization.

As pointed out, the culprit is the Martial Law-era automatic debt servicing policy of government. This policy has greatly undermined the constitutional duty of Congress to allocate funds that will meet the pressing needs of the people. Under EO 292, government computes all public debt obligations that have to be settled and automatically sets aside the needed amount to ensure timely payments.

Meanwhile, Congress has to make do with whatever is left of government’s meager resources to budget for the social and development needs of the people. What makes this whole situation more unjust and oppressive is that most of the country’s public debt has been used for projects and/or programs that were tainted with corruption, did not benefit the people or worse, had caused more hardship to the poor. Examples include the power privatization loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which have already reached around $1.3 billion since 2002.

There are many other odious loans that should be reviewed, renegotiated and/or altogether cancelled to reduce the debt burden. But EO 292 deprives Congress and the Filipino people of this policy option.

Debt-funded dole

Even the much ballyhooed CCT program is being partly funded by foreign debt worth $805 million from the ADB and the World Bank, adding to the country’s debilitating debt burden. And while adding to the debt burden, the CCT’s positive impact on alleviating poverty is also suspect. Between 2009 and 2012, the number of CCT beneficiaries ballooned from 594,356 households to more than 3 million (or an enormous 407% increase); the national budget for CCT during the same period also swelled from ₱5 billion to ₱39.4 billion (or a whopping 688% hike). But self-rated poverty, as measured by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) worsened from an average of 48% in 2010 to 51% this year.

Privatization and debt

Funding PPP initiatives, on the other hand, is problematic given the country’s experience with privatization in the past two decades. PPP schemes in the water and power sectors, for instance, have resulted in soaring and exorbitant user fees. Aquino’s plan to tap PPP to construct school buildings and health facilities is fe

ared to further marginalize the poor as fees skyrocket to ensure the profits of participating private contractors while aggravating the indebtedness of government.

In fact, the national budget has long been being undermined by the impact of such onerous PPP contracts. Case in point is the controversial build-lease-transfer (BLT) contract to run the metro rail transit (MRT) where the Aquino administration is pushing to implement a fare hike of as much as 100% to pass on to commuters the government’s debt obligations and guaranteed profits of the private investor. Another is the National Power Corp. (Napocor) which after a decade of privatization and doubling of electricity rates is still mired in deep debts reaching almost P1 trillion, portion of which will be directly shouldered by consumers through the universal charge.

Other reforms

Budget items related to government’s counterinsurgency campaign can also be diverted to basic social services. Poverty alleviation initiatives like the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana) and CCT being used as part of the Oplan Bayanihan actually undermines the peace and development process by marginalizing efforts to address the root causes of insurgency (i.e. peasant landlessness) based on the fundamental principle of social justice while perpetuating the conflict and rampant human rights violations.

Aside from these items in the proposed 2013 budget, revenue generation can also be significantly increased by improving collection efficiency, reforming the tax system to maximize collections from the rich and reversing the neoliberal policies that deprived government of revenues such as trade liberalization as well as the numerous fiscal incentives to attract investors. Around ₱867 billion in new revenues can be raised from these reforms, based on Ibon estimates.

Fiscal policy for development

A national budget is important because it sets how government will use its resources. For backward countries, the issue of budget takes a more crucial role considering the scant public resources available amid the massive needs of the people and economy. In fact, for the Philippines, government needs to take a bigger responsibility to ensure that the people’s most basic needs such as education, health and housing, among others are met adequately given the chronic poverty and job scarcity.

At the same time, government must sensibly use the budget to invest in programs and policies which create the most favorable conditions for sustainable development and industrialization that will, in turn, create long-term jobs and address poverty. To achieve this, government needs a fiscal policy – tools on raising revenues and ways to spend them – that redistributes wealth and best serves the interests of the people, in particular the poor and marginalized.

Alas, despite its trappings of reformist language and deceptive increases in allocation for social services, the Aquino administration’s budget proposals, including the 2013 budget, are still reflective of the same anti-people and anti-development policy thinking of the past regimes; and still emasculated by the Marcosian automatic debt servicing. (end)

Economy, Fiscal issues, Governance

Martial Law legacy: debt servicing, top priority from Macoy to Noynoy

Image from gmanetwork.com

Last September 21, the country marked the 40^th anniversary of the imposition of Martial Law by the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. Those dark years were notorious for the numerous cases of human rights atrocities committed by the military; for the unprecedented cronyism; and for the massive and flagrant ransacking of state coffers by Marcos, his relatives and friends.

Seldom pointed out is how the Marcos dictatorship also instituted national policies that further tied our pre-industrial economy to perpetual backwardness and bound a great majority of our people to acute poverty. Seldom pointed out is how the anti-Marcos faction of the ruling elite led by Cory Aquino who supposedly restored democracy, and her successors – including son, incumbent President Benigno Aquino – have upheld and continued these policies to the serious detriment of the country and the people.

One such policy was automatic debt servicing. Guaranteed payments of the national debt, even if they were incurred under questionable circumstances; went to the pockets of corrupt government officials; and/or used to fund programs and projects that harmed the economy and the people is a testament to the still dismal state of governance and democracy in the country 40 years after Martial Law was imposed.

That the Marcosian policy of automatic debt servicing continues to deprive the people of much needed social services contradicts assertions by the Aquino government of a pro-people national budget. It has hyped, for instance, its proposed 2013 ₱2.006-trillion national budget as “Empowerment Budget”, building on its previous packaging of “Reform Budget” (2011) and “Results-Focused Budget” (2012). Underlying all these budget proposals is the theme of “daang matuwid” (straight path) and “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” (without corruption, there’s no poverty).

But behind the pro-people packaging is the reality that the priorities and programs of government, as reflected in its national budget, remain unresponsive to the urgent social needs of the poor and development requirements of the country. From the late strongman Macoy to the son of supposed democracy icons Noynoy, keeping the creditors assured has always been the top priority in crafting the national budget.

Current debt data

Marcos’s borrowing spree – from less than $1 billion when he first became President in 1966, the foreign debt ballooned to $28 billion by the time he was kicked out of Malacañang twenty-years later – set off the crippling debt burden that the country has had to endure. To keep the foreign loans coming, which had become the dictatorship’s largest source of corruption (one estimate claimed that Marcos pocketed at least ⅓ of foreign loans), Marcos issued Presidential Decree (PD) 1177 or the Budget Reform Decree of 1977 that automatically appropriates for debt servicing regardless of how much is left of the country’s resources to fund basic social services. The late President Corazon Aquino affirmed this policy through Executive Order (EO) 292 or the Administrative Code of 1987.

As of July 2012, the outstanding debt of the national government, according to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) stood at ₱5.16 trillion, of which ₱3.12 trillion (61%) come from domestic creditors and the rest, ₱2.04 trillion (39%) from foreign lenders. When President Aquino assumed office in June 2010, that debt was pegged at ₱4.58 trillion (₱2.59 trillion, domestic; ₱1.99 trillion, foreign). Since taking over, the Aquino administration has added more than ₱580 billion to the debt burden, or an average of more than ₱23 billion a month (July 2010 to July 2012). During the Arroyo administration, the outstanding debt of the national government was growing by a monthly average of ₱21 billion (January 2001 to June 2010).

Meanwhile, looking at the foreign debt data (which include public and private debt, with the former accounting for 77% of the $62.9-billion total as of March 2012) as monitored by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), it appears that the country’s external loans have been accumulating most rapidly under the current Aquino administration with an average of $268.81 million per month. It is the largest monthly growth in foreign debt among all post-Marcos administrations. (See Chart)

A news report on the latest debt data noted that each Filipino now owes the national government’s creditors some ₱53,715 (based on the latest estimated population of 96 million by the National Statistical Coordination Board of NSCB). A minimum wage earner in the National Capital Region (NCR) will need to give his salary for 120 to 131 workdays if he will be forced to pay for his share of this debt; or 232 days if he is from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Meager allocation for social services

But the real impact of such heavy debt burden is felt by the poor in the meager allocation that important social services get from government because limited resources are being siphoned off by automatic debt servicing. And Aquino is proving to be worse than Arroyo in this respect. Under the Aquino administration, government has already shelled out ₱1.45 trillion for debt servicing from July 2010 to July 2012. It’s equivalent to ₱58.05 billion a month, almost ₱10 billion bigger than Arroyo’s ₱48.18 billion a month during her prolonged 9 ½-year term. (See Table 1)

Further, debt servicing relative to total expenditures (including principal repayments) is pegged at almost 59% under Aquino, compared to 42% under Arroyo; and relative to total revenues collected, it’s 76% under Aquino and 66% under Arroyo. These figures mean that that the absolute increase in debt servicing in the past two years is exerting more pressure on public resources which could not cope with the country’s growing expenses, including the need to pay for government’s mounting debts. To finance its expenses, including payments for past debts, the Aquino administration is borrowing more.

Debt servicing continues to eat up a huge portion of the national budget despite claims by the Aquino administration that social services are now being prioritized by government. The expenditure program from 2011 to the proposed 2013 national budget, for instance, shows that the budget for debt servicing (including principal amortization) is equivalent to an average of 2.5 times that of the budget for education; 6.4 times, health; and 11.2 times, housing. (See Table 2)

To be concluded

Economy, Global issues, Privatization

ADB: Anti-Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is holding its 45^th annual meeting from May 2 to 5 in Manila. Some 4,000 delegates including finance ministers and central bank governors from ADB’s member-countries; as well as representatives of big business, international financial institutions (IFIs), transnational banks, credit rating agencies, global media, and even so-called civil society are attending the said event. With the theme “inclusive growth through better governance and partnerships”, the event will mark the 15^th time that the ADB has held its annual meeting in Manila. Venues have been arranged at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

The ADB was founded in 1966 and now has 67 members. It’s one of the global financial institutions set up by the industrial powers to fund their programs and projects in backward countries. Together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other IFIs, the ADB bankrolled numerous restructuring efforts that aim to liberalize, deregulate and privatize the economies of many countries in the Asia Pacific. These reforms have been implemented through huge and burdensome debts. The Philippines is a founding member of the ADB and has been hosting the bank’s main headquarters since its inception.

ADB’s 45^th meeting is an opportune time for the Filipino people to register its strongest condemnation of the multilateral bank that has been funding numerous anti-poor economic reforms and destructive projects in the country.

Neoliberal offensive in energy

In the Philippines, ADB’s disastrous impact is most felt in the energy sector through the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira) and the neoliberal reforms implemented in the sector in the past two decades. The ADB started funding the power sector reforms through loans and equity investments to independent power producers (IPPs) as well as guarantees for bonds issued by the National Power Corp. (Napocor). Due to sweetheart deals with the IPPs, Napocor further went deeper in debt, which the ADB used to justify its total privatization.

As Napocor’s largest creditor, the ADB aggressively pressured the national government to fully privatize the state-owned power firm and enact the Epira. In 1994, it funded a study that eventually became the basis of the then Ramos administration’s blueprint for power sector restructuring. This blueprint took the form of an Omnibus Power Bill that was filed in 1996 that aimed to privatize Napocor and restructure the power industry. The Omnibus Power Bill would later become the Epira, a process that was bankrolled by the ADB’s $300-million 1998 Power Sector Restructuring Program (PSRP). To access the loan, the ADB listed 61 specific conditionalities that the government should follow, including designing content and legislation of the Epira.

Even Epira’s actual implementation is being funded by the ADB. Since 2002, the ADB has approved an estimated $1.3 billion in loans to support the various programs and projects under Epira. These include debts to guarantee the bond issuance and improve the creditworthiness of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm), which Epira put up to oversee the privatization of Napocor, and establish the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM).

Under Epira, electricity bills have soared amid energy insecurity such as the case in Mindanao. According to one study, the power rates for residential users in Manila and Cebu are the first and third most expensive in Asia, respectively. Even the supposedly “cheap” electricity rates in Mindanao are still much more expensive than the rates in more progressive Asian cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul. Since Epira was implemented, the rates of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) have jumped by 112% while the rates of the Napocor have increased by 95 percent.

Meanwhile, the lack of energy security is the result of government’s abandonment of its mandate to invest in the rehabilitation of existing plants and construction of new ones. Instead of ensuring that there is enough energy supply consistent with a long-term industrialization plan, government used its time and resources to dispose the generation and transmission assets of Napocor as mandated by Epira.

Anti-poor reforms

Aside from the neoliberal restructuring of the power sector, the ADB has also aggressively promoted various privatization and commercialization initiatives including in water utilities, irrigation, dam, and the National Food Authority (NFA), among others. These reforms have resulted in food insecurity and in skyrocketing cost of living.

Privatization is one of the major programs of the ADB in the Philippines, including the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative of the Aquino administration. ADB is the main funder of the Project Development and Monitoring Facility (PDMF), which is government’s revolving fund for feasibility studies for projects under the PPP scheme. The ADB has already committed $21 million for the PDMF.

Furthermore, the ADB also bankrolled a 1993-1994 study that became the basis of the destructive Mining Act of 1995. This program, which liberalized the Philippine mining industry, has paved the way for the further wanton plunder of the country’s mineral resources, the destruction of the environment, and dislocation of communities.

Oppressive debt

Worse, these anti-development and anti-poor programs have been funded by onerous ADB loans. The ADB is now the country’s single largest foreign creditor. As of 2011, the country owes the ADB around $5.84 billion, which is almost 10% of the total foreign debt of the Philippines pegged at $16.71 billion. Among the multilateral creditors, the ADB accounts for more than 50% of the country’s total multilateral debt. All in all, the country has accumulated the fifth largest debt from the ADB, accounting for about 8% of total sovereign lending.

Due to automatic debt servicing, a huge portion of the national budget is being siphoned off by debt servicing, leaving almost nothing for social services. For 2012, for instance, the Aquino administration is ready to spend P738.6 billion for debt servicing, including interest payments and principal amortization. This is much bigger than the P575.8 billion that government is willing to spend for education, social security, health services, housing, land reform, and other social services.

To smokescreen the harsh effects of the neoliberal reforms that it has been sponsoring and the lack of resources for social services due to debt servicing, the ADB – together with the World Bank – is also funding the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program of the Aquino administration. Under the CCT, government provides direct cash assistance of as much as P1,400 to selected poor families on the condition that pregnant mothers will have their regular checkup and school age children will regularly go to class. But aside from being highly temporary and limited, the CCT also further deepens the indebtedness of the Philippines. The ADB is funding the CCT to the tune of $400 million in loans while the World Bank is also lending $405 million for the program.

Strong protest

ADB’s theme of inclusive growth for its meeting this year reflects the main theme of the host government’s Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011-2016. Under the PDP, inclusive growth is supposed to be achieved by expanding the domestic economy by 7-8%, which will generate jobs and livelihood and alleviate poverty. But Aquino’s inclusive growth means the implementation of the same policies and programs of liberalization, deregulation and privatization that the ADB – together with the IMF, World Bank and other global imperialist institutions – has long been imposing on the country.

We should not let the ADB meeting pass without registering our strong opposition to its decades of intervention in Philippine policy making and to the many programs that it has bankrolled through odious debts that perpetuate the backwardness of our economy and the poverty of our people. (end)

Economy, Fiscal issues

Aquino’s 2012 budget: Diretso sa tubo

Far from being Diretso sa Tao, the 2012 budget is in reality Diretso sa Tubo. Instead of the government’s meager resources going straight to the needs of the people, taxpayers’ money will actually go straight to the pockets of creditors while creating the most favorable environment and profit-making opportunities for private business. (Photo from The Philippine Star)

First published by The Philippine Online Chronicles

In the President’s 2012 Budget Message, President Benigno S. Aquino III boldly proclaimed: “Noong nakaraang taon, tinangkilik po ninyo ang aming pakay na tahakin ang landas Tungo sa Paggugol na Matuwid. Sa paparating na taon, hinihikayat ko po kayong patuloy na sumama at lumahok sa biyaheng ito: sa pagsiguro na ang benepisyo ng Paggugol na Matuwid ay nakatutok sa ating prayoridad at Diretso sa Tao.”

Aquino also called the P1.816-trillion budget a Results-Focused Budget, with sharp focus on the so-called A Social Contract with the Filipino People, which he used as campaign platform in last year’s elections. In sum, the Social Contract and thus the proposed budget supposedly have five priorities: (1) Transparent, accountable, and participatory governance; (2) Poverty reduction and empowerment of the poor and vulnerable; (3) Rapid, inclusive, and sustained economic growth; (4) Just and lasting peace and rule of law; and (5) Integrity of environment and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The spending and efforts of the administration will purportedly focus on these five priorities.

But far from being Diretso sa Tao, the 2012 budget is in reality Diretso sa Tubo. Instead of the government’s meager resources going straight to the ever growing and urgent needs of the people, taxpayers’ money will actually go straight to the pockets of creditors while creating the most favorable environment and profit-making opportunities for private business.

Debt servicing remains top priority

In hyping the budget, Aquino declared that a substantial portion of it – about 20.3% or P368.8 billion – will be spent directly on programs for poverty reduction and empowerment of the poor. Of this amount, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) accounts for a considerable share with P39.5 billion. Another major portion comes from the P61.9 billion allocated for public education sector’s scholarship programs, financial assistance programs, training programs, hiring of additional teachers, construction and rehabilitation of facilities, procurement of textbooks, and support to State Universities and Colleges (SUCs). It also allotted P44.4 billion for undertakings meant to achieve the health targets under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There’s also the P5.6 billion intended for the resettlement of families residing along danger areas and families affected by calamities and so-called “slum upgrading.”

While Aquino and his budget officials try to paint these numbers as impressive, the truth is they still pale in comparison to the huge amount of public money that will again go to debt servicing in 2012. The P368.8 billion is just a little higher than the P333.1 billion in Interest Payments in the proposed budget. Including the Principal Amortization (P405.5 billion), Debt Service Expenditures for 2012 will reach P738.6 billion, or more than twice the P368.8 billion that Aquino said will directly go to the poor and marginalized sectors. To further illustrate how big the budget is for debt servicing, the total Debt Service Expenditures is also much larger than the combined P575.8-billion Social Services budget that includes Education (P308.9 billion); Social Security, Welfare, and Employment (P104.5 billion); Health (P49.9 billion); Housing and Community Development (P7.1 billion); Land Distribution (P2.5 billion); and Other Social Services and Subsidy to Local Government Units (P102.9 billion).

Aquino, in his first year in office, has already proven to creditors that his administration is a reliable and good borrower, even better than his immediate predecessor. From July 2010 to July 2011, Aquino has shelled out P735.6 billion for debt servicing. This translates to about P61.3 billion on a per month basis, or P13.1 billion bigger than the monthly debt servicing under the Arroyo administration (from January 2001 to June 2010). Furthermore, from July 2010 to May 2011 (latest available data), Aquino’s debt servicing is equivalent to 46.6% of government expenditures (including its principal payments), as compared to Arroyo’s 41.5 percent.

Facilitating more privatization of infrastructure and services

It is true that debt servicing will decline in the 2012 budget while increases will be made in Social Services and Economic Services. The P1.816-trillion budget is higher than the present budget of P1.645 trillion by P171 billion, with the budget for Social Services going up by P54.3 billion (from P521.5 billion to P575.8 billion) and Economic Services increasing by P77 billion (from P361.9 billion to P438.9 billion). The budget for Defense will also go up by P11.6 billion (from P101.5 billion to P113.1 billion), General Public Services, by P44 billion (from P288.1 billion to P332.1 billion), and Net Lending, P8 billion (from P15 billion to P23 billion). Interest Payments, on the other hand, will go down by P24 billion (from P357.1 billion to P333.1 billion). In terms of percentage share, Economic Services will improve by two points (22 to 24%) and Interest Payments will slide by the same amount (20 to 18%), while the expenditure program of the rest of the sectors will maintain their share – Social Services (32%), Defense (6%), General Public Services (18%), and Net Lending (1%).

As pointed out, however, debt servicing will continue to be the single biggest expenditure item in the 2012 budget despite its decline both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total. Furthermore, aside from the increase in quantity, it is also important to examine the quality of the increases. The budget increase in Social Services and Economic Services are deceiving because they do not guarantee improved access and better quality of life for the people. In reality, the increases are meant to facilitate the privatization of infrastructure development and social services in the country in line with Aquino’s centerpiece program – the Public-Private Partnership (PPP). (Read more about the PPP here and here) As the President said in his budget message, after introducing PPP through the 2011 budget as an innovative way to address the perennial lack of funds for infrastructure, the government will not only sustain it but even expand to include social services.

For the 2012 budget, Aquino is proposing P22.1 billion as counterpart funding from the national government for various infrastructure and capital outlay support for the PPP initiatives of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), Department of Health (DOH), and Department of Education (DepEd).

(To be continued)

Fiscal issues, SONA 2011

SONA 2011: Making sense of Aquino’s facts and figures (part 2)

Aquino missed in his SONA the facts and figures that matter to the people (Photo from pinoypower.net)

Continued from part 1

Aquino also claimed that in his first year as President, the Philippines got upgraded four times by credit rating agencies. Compare this, said Aquino, to the lone credit upgrade and six downgrades the country had in the nine and a half years of the Arroyo administration. A high credit rating means lower interest payments. According to Aquino, the country spent P23 billion less in interest payments from January to April 2011 compared to the same period last year. This amount can supposedly already cover the 2.3 million families in target beneficiaries of the CCT program until the end of the year.

Debt servicing

A credit rating is simply the measure of the credit worthiness of government. Credit worthiness, meanwhile, pertains to the ability of government to repay its debt obligations. A high or favorable credit rating indicates that there is less or no risk of defaulting on our loans. Thus, creditors are more willing to lend with lower interest rates and therefore “less” debt burden for the borrower.

But the credit rating upgrades came at a high cost for the people. To obtain the upgrades, the Aquino administration ensured that debt obligations are being paid dutifully and at the same time resorted to massive under-spending. The result is that an ever increasing portion of spending by the national government went to debt servicing. Since Aquino became President, total debt servicing has already reached P668.65 billion (from July 2010 to May 2011). Until April this year, 49.3 percent of what the Aquino administration has spent went to debt servicing.

Worse than Arroyo

Compare these figures to those under Arroyo, who has been criticized as a heavy borrower and payer. Monthly debt servicing during the Arroyo administration was P48.18 billion while in the first 11 months of the Aquino presidency, it went up to P60.79 billion. As a percentage of total government spending (including principal payments), the average during the Arroyo administration was 41.5 percent while under Aquino, it has increased to 49.3 percent (until April 2011). (See Table)

Despite the bigger debt servicing, the total outstanding debt of government (including contingent debt) still rose from P5.19 trillion in June 2010 to P5.23 trillion as of April 2011. The P40-billion rise in government debt includes $400 million (about P18 billion) in loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved last September 2010 to help bankroll the expanded CCT program. This means that the P23 billion mentioned by Aquino as savings from lower interest payments will just be used to pay for the rising debt obligations of government, including those incurred for the CCT.

Fiscal deficit

The credit rating upgrades were also achieved due to the improvement in the national budget deficit, another indicator closely watched to determine a country’s creditworthiness. From an all-time high (in absolute terms) of P314.5 billion in deficit in 2010, the Aquino administration has been able to substantially reduce the shortfall so far this year. From January to May 2011, the fiscal deficit was pegged at just P9.54 billion or 94.1 percent below the deficit during the same period in 2010. It is also way below the programmed deficit of P152.13 billion for the first half of the year.

This lower deficit was made possible by higher revenues and lower spending during the period. As compared to the first five months of 2010, revenues are higher by P81.5 billion while spending is down by P71.08 billion. Furthermore, monthly collections are more than P1.89 billion higher than expected while monthly expenditures are almost P21.55 billion lower than programmed.

At the people’s expense

But the improved fiscal situation was achieved at the expense of the people who are being deprived of social services as government under-spent and much of what it spent went to debt servicing. At the same time, the people are being squeezed dry with burdensome taxes to raise revenues.

To keep credit rating agencies and creditors impressed, Aquino rejected the growing public clamor to scrap or at least suspend the 12 percent value-added tax (VAT) on oil amid soaring pump prices. According to Aquino, “suspending the VAT might trigger a credit downgrade because credit rating agencies would likely deem such a move as ‘fiscally imprudent’.”

The oil VAT has become one of the most important sources of revenues for government since Arroyo introduced it in 2005. But it is also the most oppressive. Revenues from the oil VAT rise dramatically as prices of petroleum products increase. Due to higher oil prices this year, for instance, the Department of Finance (DOF) expects government to earn an additional P18 billion in revenues. From an original forecast of P52 billion in oil VAT earnings based on a global crude price of $80 per barrel, the DOF revised its projection to P70 billion based on $110 per barrel.

High pump prices made a significant contribution to higher tax collections this year. In the first two months of 2011, oil VAT revenues increased by P1.2 billion because of the oil price hikes. Aside from the 12 percent VAT, gasoline products are also charged with excise tax, which generated P4.03 billion for government from January to May this year – P389 million higher than during the same period in 2010.

Facts & figures that matter

Meanwhile, facts and figures that truly matter to the people have been ignored in Aquino’s SONA – P125 or the amount of legislated minimum wage hike workers have long been demanding to help them cope with ever rising cost of living; 6,453 hectares or the size of Hacienda Luisita lands that should have long been owned and controlled by farmers and farm workers; 556,526 or the number of families living in informal settlements in Metro Manila and face the threat of forced eviction; 27 or the number of times that diesel prices have gone up since Aquino became President; and 48 or the number of victims of extrajudicial killings in his first year as Chief Executive, among others.

By using numbers, the President hoped to be objective in presenting his administration’s supposed achievements during the SONA. But he ended up ignorant of the numbers that truly matter. (End)

Power industry, Privatization

The curious case of NAPOCOR debts

The deep indebtedness of NAPOCOR was one of the strongest arguments used to justify the EPIRA (Photo from Kevin Collins on flickr.com)

Continued from Part 1

Proponents of EPIRA made us believe that privatization will solve the financial woes of state-owned NAPOCOR. In fact, the deep indebtedness of NAPOCOR was one of the strongest arguments used to justify the EPIRA. If state coffers are being bled dry by the debts of NAPOCOR, then why not just sell its assets to wipe out its obligations? Obviously, the public was deceived by this simple line of reasoning.

Drain in public resources

Such argument by the then Arroyo administration sounded persuasive for some because government was facing a swelling budget deficit and debt. In 2001, the budget shortfall was P147.02 billion. Including the deficit of other government units, the consolidated public sector deficit was P174.27 billion. Meanwhile, the outstanding national government debt during the period was P2.38 trillion. NAPOCOR represented the biggest drain in public resources. Its 2001 debt of $16.39 billion or some P834.29 billion (at P50.99 per US dollar) accounted for 34.9 percent of government’s outstanding debt. With the EPIRA, the Arroyo administration promised to reverse the situation.

Fast forward to 2011. According to the PSALM Corp., the remaining debt of NAPOCOR as of 2010 is $15.82 billion. Thus, after 10 years, only $570 million have been shaved from the state power firm’s 2001 debt of $16.39 billion. At $15.82 billion or P713.64 billion (at P45.11 per US dollar), the debt of NAPOCOR comprised a still a significant 15 percent of government’s outstanding debt. Meanwhile, the budget deficit ballooned to P314.5 billion in 2010, a new high in absolute terms.

While its IPP obligations have been reduced by $1.63 billion between 2001 and 2010, NAPOCOR’s debt also increased by $1.02 billion during the same period. This implies that IPP obligations have been mainly financed by new debts. (See Chart 3)

Worse, PSALM has already shelled out $18 billion to settle the obligations of NAPOCOR from 2001 to 2010. Of the said amount, $6.7 billion went to principal amortization; $4.3 billion for interest payments; and $7 billion for obligations to independent power producers (IPPs). (See Chart 4) But if government spent $18 billion in the past 10 years, why then did the debt of NAPOCOR was reduced by a mere $570 million?

New debts

PSALM itself provided the explanation. According to it, NAPOCOR contracted new debts in the past 10 years. From 2001 to 2010, NAPOCOR accumulated new debts of $12 billion, on top of its $16.39-billion pre-EPIRA debt. Of the $12 billion, 73 percent represented operational losses while the commissioning of new IPP plants accounted for the remaining 27 percent. PSALM noted that the commissioning of new IPP plants bloated the total financial obligations of NAPOCOR to $22.35 billion by 2003.

The question now is why did officials tasked to privatize NAPOCOR have to resort to more borrowings? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of power sector reform which is to free up government from its debilitating financial woes?

Under the EPIRA, eliminating NAPOCOR’s debts primarily involves using the proceeds from the privatization of the state power firm’s generation and transmission assets and liabilities. Apparently, this has not happened because earnings from power privatization were not enough to compensate the huge financial obligations of NAPOCOR.

According to the PSALM, government has earned $10.65 billion as of October 2010 from the sale of its generation plants, transmission assets, and IPP contracts. Of the said amount, the largest, $3.95 billion, came from the privatization of the National Transmission Corporation (TRANSCO). The sale of generating plants, on the other hand, yielded $3.47 billion. Finally, the transfer of NAPOCOR’s IPP contracts to IPP Administrators (IPPAs) accounted for the remaining $3.23 billion.

Privatization debacle

However, of the $10.65 billion in total privatization proceeds, only $4.85 billion was actually collected and used to pay for NAPOCOR’s debt. PSALM reasoned that earnings from the privatization of TRANSCO and the IPP contracts will be fully collected in a number of years through a staggered collection scheme. “But in any year when maturing debts exceed privatization collections, PSALM will have no recourse but to raise funds through new loans to pay for maturing obligations,” PSALM said. This explains the $12 billion in new debts incurred by NAPOCOR in the past 10 years.

It appears that the supposed benefits of privatization in terms of addressing NAPOCOR’s financial bleeding will not be felt anytime soon. PSALM said that the debt of NAPOCOR will be significantly reduced only by 2026, with a projected residual debt of $3.78 billion. The amount is exclusively based on privatization proceeds as of 2010 and maturing financial obligations. Depending on future privatization proceeds and earnings from the universal charge, PSALM claimed that it may even liquidate the $3.78 billion before its corporate life ends in 2026.

But it doesn’t mean that NAPOCOR will be debt-free by the time PSALM expires 15 years from now. This will depend on how much government can earn from the privatization of its remaining assets and IPP contracts. If the experience of the past 10 years is to serve as indicator, it seems that there is nothing much to hope in EPIRA even in just mitigating the public sector’s fiscal burden. Why is this so?

NAPOCOR’s financial bleeding

Even prior to the EPIRA, there were already initial efforts by government to privatize the power industry. But even then, officials already knew that power privatization can only be successful if government could package it in the most attractive way for businesses to take notice. One factor going against efforts to privatize the power sector was the small energy market of the Philippines. Being a pre-industrial, backward economy, Philippine energy consumption is not as huge as those of other countries even compared to our neighbors in Southeast Asia.

To remedy the concern over a small market, government had to offer incentives and other benefits that will guarantee the profits of private investors. IPPs, for instance, were offered a guaranteed market that was much larger than the actual electricity consumption of the country through take-or-pay contracts, on top of other benefits. These guarantees and perks were the underlying reasons for NAPOCOR’s financial hemorrhage.

Legitimizing onerous contracts & debts

Alas, EPIRA even legitimized these burdensome and unjust contracts and debts. To entice investors, Section 32 of the law mandated the government (and ultimately, the taxpayers) to automatically assume P200 billion in financial obligations of NAPOCOR.

Section 68 of EPIRA did mandate the “thorough review” all IPP contracts by an inter-agency committee headed by the Department of Finance (DOF). It also tasked the committee to take necessary actions in cases where contracts are found to be grossly disadvantageous or onerous to the government. Implementing this provision, then President Arroyo ordered a review of 35 IPP contracts. In 2002, the DOF-led review committee said that a total of 27 contracts have financial issues. A financial issue pertained to an instance when the government agency that entered into the contract agreed to shoulder financial obligations “beyond what is necessary”.

But instead of rescinding these financially onerous IPP contracts, government opted to simply renegotiate them. PSALM claimed that the renegotiations have resulted in some $1.03 billion in savings for the government Such savings, however, were not the result of striking out the take-or-pay provisions in the contracts, which remained even after the renegotiations. The reported savings mostly came from IPPs reducing their nominated capacity, or the capacity that government agreed to pay for whether electricity is actually produced or not. The renegotiations were done not to substantially rewrite the contracts. On the contrary, discussions were carried out by PSALM officials with the IPPs within the parameters set by the contracts.

Consumers’ burden

Even worse, EPIRA mandated that all the costs resulting from these contracts be borne by the hapless consumers. Section 34 of the law states that “a universal charge to be determined, fixed, and approved by the ERC shall be imposed on all electricity end-users”. The universal charge shall be collected for, among others, the recovery of so-called stranded debt and stranded contract costs of NAPOCOR.

Section 4 of EPIRA defines stranded debts as any unpaid financial obligations of NAPOCOR which have not been liquidated by the proceeds from the sales and privatization of its assets. On the other hand, stranded contract costs refer to the excess of contracted cost of electricity under eligible contracts (i.e. those approved by the ERC as of December 2000) over the actual selling price of the contracted energy output of such contracts in the market. Stranded contract costs are basically the take-or-pay capacity payments that will not be offset by the privatization of the IPP contracts and thus will still be shouldered by NAPOCOR.

In June 2009, PSALM had filed petitions before the ERC to recover almost P470.87 billion in NAPOCOR stranded debts and almost P22.26 billion in stranded contract costs for the Luzon grid. The recovery of stranded debts translates to a rate hike of 30.49 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh) based on a recovery period of 17 years. Meanwhile, the petition to recover the stranded contract costs in five years will translate to a rate hike of 9.20 centavos per kWh. PSALM filed another set of petitions in June 2010 to recover stranded debts for 2010 (projected at almost P54.90 billion), equivalent to almost 86.77 centavos per kWh. It also proposed to recover in three years stranded contract costs for 2009 estimated at almost P26.69 billion, equivalent to 18.79 centavos per kWh.

Fortunately, the ERC dismissed these petitions last November 15, 2010. The dismissal, however, was not because they had no basis (EPIRA allows such recoveries through the universal charge) but due to PSALM’s failure to submit supporting documents and information. In fact, the ERC decision clearly stated that the dismissal was “without prejudice to the re-filing of the same after conforming to the pertinent ERC regulations”. The relief for consumers is indeed just temporary. On or before June 30 this year, PSALM is expected to file another set of petitions to recover NAPOCOR’s stranded debts and stranded contract costs. Reportedly, PSALM is filing for 12 to 15 centavos per kWh-hike in the universal charge. (To be concluded)

Also read The role of foreign lenders, investment banks, and credit rating agencies in Philippine power sector reform

Power industry, Privatization

The role of foreign lenders, investment banks, and credit rating agencies in Philippine power sector reform

EPIRA was the result of intense pressure from NAPOCOR creditors led by the Asian Development Bank (Photo from finchannel.com)

Last June 8, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) of 2001 or Republic Act (RA) 9136 marked its tenth year of implementation. A day before, utility giant Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) announced that it is again hiking its generation charge by 51 centavos per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The rate hike underscored how EPIRA has harmed consumers with exorbitant electricity rates, which have now become the highest in Asia. Indeed, EPIRA is considered one of the most notorious legacies of the despised Arroyo administration that was even accused of bribing Congress just to get EPIRA passed a decade ago.

But Mrs. Arroyo and her allies in the legislature are not solely to blame because EPIRA was not just a product of internal and independent policy making. Rather, it was the result of intense pressure from the creditors of the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) who were wary that the heavily indebted state firm will not be able to pay them back. NAPOCOR lenders, namely, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), World Bank, and the Japan Export-Import Bank (JEXIM) and Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) withheld committed loans for NAPOCOR unless EPIRA was passed. At the same time, they promised additional lending for the privatization and deregulation of the power sector. (JEXIM and OECF merged in 1999 to form the Japan Bank for International Cooperation or JBIC.)

Credit rating agencies also put pressure on the bankrupt government to pass the EPIRA while investment banks acted as privatization consultants. These institutions represent foreign corporate interests who also pushed for the passage of EPIRA to widen their profit-making opportunities in the Philippines through the privatization and deregulation of the power industry. Therefore, these foreign banks and corporations are as accountable as the Philippine government for the mess created by EPIRA.

Pre-EPIRA intervention

In fact, the restructuring of the power industry and the role that these creditors played did not begin with Arroyo’s EPIRA in 2001. EPIRA was in reality the culmination of neoliberal power reforms long pushed by multilateral creditors. Initial efforts started in 1987 during the administration of the late President Cory Aquino with her Executive Order (EO) No. 215. This EO allowed private sector participation in the construction and operation of power plants in the country. In 1990, Congress passed RA 6957 or the BOT Law that authorized the financing, construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure projects by the private sector.

These policies formed part of neoliberal structural adjustment pushed by the IMF and World Bank starting in the 1980s in poor countries facing a debt crisis like the Philippines. Among the stated objectives of structural adjustment was to supposedly reduce government deficit and spending through, among others, the privatization of state assets and functions. The ADB had supported these privatization efforts in the early 1990s through loans and equity investment to independent power producers (IPPs) as well as guarantees for NAPOCOR bonds.

Compounding the fiscal woes of government was the deteriorating power situation in the early 1990s, which government responded to with more privatization. In 1993, former President Fidel Ramos was granted emergency powers to enter into negotiated contracts with IPPs for the construction of power plants through the Electric Power Crisis Act or RA 7648. Then in 1994, RA 7718 which amended RA 6957 was enacted to further promote the participation of the private sector in infrastructure development, including power generation.

However, the ADB in a 1994 study (as cited in Sharma et. al., “Electricity industry reform in the Philippines,” Energy Policy, 2004) noted that despite these efforts at privatization, the power crisis continued to worsen. It argued that there was a need for further privatization because NAPOCOR, despite ending its monopoly in generation, still retained its monopsony position. Furthermore, domestic capital was considered insufficient to meet the long-term capital requirements of the industry while legal restrictions on foreign ownership were hampering investment.

Power restructuring program

As early as 1994, the ADB, NAPOCOR, Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of Finance (DOF) had already initiated policy dialogue concerning NAPOCOR’s difficulty in funding necessary generation and transmission projects “and the need for a radical change.” By 1996, an Omnibus Power Industry Bill was filed at Congress to privatize NAPOCOR and restructure the industry. The bill did not gain ground but was later re-filed in 1998 as the ADB approved a $300-million loan to fund the Power Sector Restructuring Program (PSRP) that was co-financed by the JBIC with an additional $400 million. EPIRA was the direct product of this $700-million loan from the ADB and JBIC.

According to the ADB, the PSRP will create competitive electricity markets, restore NAPOCOR’s financial sustainability, and achieve operational improvements and increased efficiencies. The loan was meant to help finance the adjustment costs of privatization such as the take-or-pay contracts with the IPPs and excess debts upon NAPOCOR’s privatization – or what will be called as stranded debts and stranded contract costs under EPIRA. Aside from the loan, the PSRP was also accompanied by two technical assistance (TA) grants from the ADB worth $1.32 million for a study on electricity pricing and regulatory practice as well as a consumer impact assessment.

The PSRP was part of a standby arrangement in 1998 between the Philippines and ADB, World Bank, and IMF. The World Bank’s commitment to the standby arrangement was a fast disbursing loan package of $500 million while the IMF standby facility was worth $280 million. Under the standby arrangement, the Philippine government committed to implement among others further fiscal reforms, financial sector and structural reforms, and strengthening the corporate sector, which included as a critical component power sector restructuring.

Access to the PSRP was structured in a manner that ensured strict compliance to a total of 61 specific conditionalities identified by the ADB in the loan program. These conditionalities were jointly designed by the ADB, World Bank, and JBIC. The $300-million ADB loan was divided into three equal tranches with the first tranche released upon loan effectiveness and compliance to 13 conditionalities while the second tranche was targeted for release in 1999 upon compliance to an additional 8 conditionalities (including the approval of creditor banks of NAPOCOR’s restructuring and privatization plan and passage of EPIRA), while the third tranche was targeted for release in the second half of 2000 upon compliance to a further 7 conditionalities (including the promulgation of EPIRA’s implementing rules and regulations). The rest of the conditionalities were expected to be complied with during the implementation of the program.

However, the passage of EPIRA was delayed and the ADB conditionalities were not met on time. Consequently, the second and third tranches of the PSRP were withheld by the ADB until the conditionalities were implemented by the Philippine government. The second tranche was released in December 2001 and the last tranche in November 2002.

In early 1999, NAPOCOR disclosed that its creditors had warned to cut-off new loans until the privatization of the state-owned power firm was implemented. The World Bank, for instance, indicated that it will no longer support NAPOCOR until the year 2000 while the OECF had advised that no NAPOCOR project will be included in its loan packages. The ADB, meanwhile, had imposed a “very strict” condition of 8% return on rate base (RORB) – a measure of profitability – for NAPOCOR to ensure access to loans. [“No new Napocor loans (Precarious condition worries foreign lenders),” BusinessWorld, March 26, 1999] It was estimated that over $1 billion in fresh foreign loans were riding on the passage of EPIRA. [“Int’l credit groups unsure about tack on Napocor loans,” BusinessWorld, April 13, 2000]

Pro-business lobby

Aside from the foreign creditors, other imperialist institutions had also added to the pressure to privatize NAPOCOR and in some cases even pushed for specific provisions that eventually became part of EPIRA. Credit-rating agencies like Moody’s Investor Service, Inc., for example, had made the privatization of NAPOCOR a pre-requisite for a credit rating upgrade for the Philippines. [“Napocor privatization needed for Moody’s credit rating upgrade,” BusinessWorld, December 13, 1999]

US-based investment banks Credit Suisse First Boston and Arthur Andersen, meanwhile, pushed for government to retain the debts of NAPOCOR instead of passing them to generating companies to make privatization more attractive. These same investment banks advised legislators not to abrogate the onerous purchased power adjustment (PPA) because it will “damage the country’s reputation in the international financial and political arenas.” [“Transparency necessary in Napocor privatization,” BusinessWorld, August 31, 2000]

Credit Suisse, which government tapped to develop a privatization plan for NAPOCOR, also pushed for cross-ownership in generation and distribution in contrast to the then power reform bill that banned all forms of cross-ownership. [“Legislator says Napocor sale consultant exceeded mandate,” BusinessWorld, August 18, 2000] The unbundling of rates supposedly for transparency as well as the dismantling of all forms of subsidy “as rapidly as possible” because “they send incorrect pricing signals in a free market and create economic inefficiencies” were also among the specific provisions in the EPIRA pushed by the Credit Suisse group.

Foreign investors had also publicly called on government to pass the EPIRA without delay. British power firms, for example, warned government that delays in the legislation of EPIRA were turning off investors. They also openly lobbied for cross-ownership, which was one of the debated issues then at Congress. These British firms were among the hundred or so foreign companies – mostly American and Japanese – that had expressed interest in the privatization of NAPOCOR. [“British investors ask gov’t to accelerate Napocor sale,” BusinessWorld, April 5, 1999]

Bankrolling EPIRA implementation

These creditors continue to fund the restructuring of the power sector even after the passage of EPIRA. The ADB, for instance, approved in December 2002 a partial credit guarantee (PCG) of up to $500 million equivalent in Japanese yen bonds to “help meet the cash flow requirements during the initial stage of privatization.” Specifically, the PCG was used to guarantee the bond issuance of the newly created Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM). EPIRA established the PSALM to oversee the privatization of NAPOCOR.

Also in December 2002, the ADB approved a $45-million loan for the establishment of the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) and upgrading of critical transmission lines and substations, including a TA worth $0.8 million. JBIC co-financed the project with $45.5 million. It was followed by another TA from the ADB in 2004 worth more than $1 million to boost the confidence of private investors in the EPIRA by enhancing the efficiency of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and provide financial and technical advice to PSALM for privatization of the NAPOCOR.

So far, the largest power reform loan from the ADB after EPIRA’s enactment was the $450-million Power Sector Development Program (PSDP) approved in December 2006. In its August 2010 Completion Report, the multilateral agency said that the “ADB developed the PSDP to deal with the largest sources of the fiscal imbalance in the public sector caused by losses among the public power agencies. The PSDP was seen to reduce the losses at the (NAPOCOR) and make the (PSALM) more creditworthy, and to create the necessary conditions for the privatization of major power sector assets.” In February 2007, JBIC provided co-financing for the PSDP worth $300 million bringing the total debt to $750 million.

PSDP’s specific objectives were (1) provide financial assistance to the government, through a program loan, to help meet part of the costs of power sector restructuring; (2) create the necessary conditions for substantial progress in privatization; (3) boost confidence in regulatory performance; and (4) smooth the transition to competitive markets. Part of the first objective is to help the national government finance the P200 billion in NAPOCOR debts that it absorbed under the EPIRA. In other words, government is servicing the debts of the state-owned corporation through additional debts.

Aside from bankrolling the implementation of EPIRA, the ADB also provided loans to private corporations involved in key privatization projects. In 2007, for example, it extended a $200-million loan to the Masinloc Power Partners Company Limited (MPPC), owned by the US-based AES Corporation, for the acquisition and rehabilitation of the Masinloc coal-fired thermal power plant. The 600-MW Masinloc plant was one of the largest privatized NAPOCOR-owned power plants. Incidentally, the ADB also provided $359 million in loans and Y12 billion in partial credit guarantee to NAPOCOR to build the Masinloc plant in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, Filipino taxpayers are not only burdened by the debts that bankrolled EPIRA. We are also oppressed by exorbitant power rates, energy insecurity, etc. that resulted from the neoliberal restructuring of the industry imposed on us by foreign institutions.

Read the “Ten years of EPIRA: What went wrong?” series

Part 1 – on electricity rates

Part 2 – on NAPOCOR debts

Part 3 – on monopolies and energy security

Privatization

MRT commuters face 222 percent increase in debt servicing thru fare hike

The long and short of the MRT/LRT fare hike is that Noynoy wants the commuters to directly shoulder an even larger portion of the debt burden

In the past two weeks, I have talked to some officials of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) on the issue of the impending fare hike in the LRT and MRT. I have also asked for documents including the rail study that the department conducted which was used as the basis for the fare hike. They have yet to provide the documents although they have repeatedly assured me they will do so soon in the spirit of transparency.

(Download Bagong Alyansang Makabayan’s “Five reasons why we oppose the LRT/MRT fare hike” here and discussion guide here.)

But while I have not yet seen the documents explaining the details behind the fare hike, I have confirmed at least one important fact thru my conversations with the DOTC officials. This is the issue of debt, which I argued in a previous post is the biggest reason behind the so-called losses of government in the MRT operation. The long and short of the fare hike is that the Aquino administration wants the 1.2 million daily commuters of the MRT and LRT, of whom 7 out of 10 earn less than P10,000 a month said one study, to directly shoulder an even larger portion of the said infrastructures’ debt burden.

The rule of thumb for large infrastructure projects like the LRT/MRT is that 85 percent of the total cost represents debt, said one DOTC official. This means that 85 percent of what government claims is the actual cost of an MRT ride, which is about P60, accounts for the debts incurred by the private consortium that built the infrastructure. Without the debt, the cost of a train ride in MRT will turn out to be just P9, even higher than its current minimum fare of P10.

In other words, the present revenues of the MRT as well as of the LRT 1 and 2 could not only easily cover their operation and maintenance costs but even pay for an already significant portion of the debts. If the provisionally approved new rates will be implemented, commuters will be shouldering a higher portion of the MRT/LRT debt servicing. At present, each commuter already shells out an average of P3.30 to as much as P8.83 per train ride for debt payments. With the fare hike, the average amounts will grow by 54 percent (in LRT 1) to a staggering 222 percent (in MRT)! (See Table below)

But why is the issue of debt important? Isn’t it reasonable for the commuters to shoulder the cost of building the infrastructure which was funded by foreign debt?

In the case of the MRT, the original proponents were private corporations that formed a consortium – the Metro Rail Transit Corp. (MRTC). I have already pointed out how these investors made a killing on the MRT due to their interlocking interests with the foreign and local banks that financed the project. They also borrowed in near commercial rates, which a DOTC official I spoke to said could have been avoided if the government was the proponent since it can avail of soft loans. Payments for these onerous debts are being shouldered by the commuters and taxpayers.

The issue of debt also disproves the claim of the Aquino administration that there is a need for a fare hike because government is losing money. Such claim misleads the people into believing that MRT/LRT commuters pay below the actual cost of operating and maintaining the rail systems. As I showed earlier, they are paying even more than the cost of operation and maintenance. Government is losing money due to onerous contractual and debt obligations.

Furthermore, it is not unusual for state agencies managing public infrastructure like the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), which operates LRT 1 and 2, to be in the red because their performance is measured not in narrow financial terms but through the net social and economic benefits they bring. The new capability that results from public infrastructure such as improved mobility of the economy’s workforce, for instance, far outweighs what government deems as its “losses”. These losses are actually not losses in the business sense but public investment that go into achieving economic efficiency and improving the overall living condition of the people.

By placing additional burden on commuters to settle the debts of the MRT/LRT, government is abandoning its obligation to provide the infrastructure needs of the people and the economy. The Aquino administration tries to conceal this dereliction of duty by peddling the twisted logic that it is unfair for Mindanao taxpayers to subsidize the MRT/LRT users in Metro Manila.

The Filipino people are paying for the debts of the MRT/LRT in the same way that we are paying for the debts incurred to build infrastructure in Mindanao and elsewhere in the country. If Aquino is sensitive to the needs and interests of the people, he should be lessening, not intensifying, this burden. One way is to renegotiate with creditors – an option that even some technical people in the DOTC recognize as legitimate, particularly in the case of MRT – to reduce the impact on government’s scant resources. The country has so many odious debts dating back from the Marcos dictatorship up to the Arroyo government (for instance, read here) that a leader with strong political will and genuine concern for the people would work hard to abrogate.

There is neither need nor urgency to increase the fares in MRT/LRT. If Aquino’s economic managers will insist that there is because of the precarious fiscal situation, then instead of unjustly burdening the people, they should advise the President to stop bailing out transnational corporations (TNCs) like what he did in the case of the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant which saved Japanese giants Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Marubeni Corp. from paying P6 billion in taxes. Or they can tell the Chief Executive to stop giving investors more state guarantees, which will be taken from the people’s money, such as the regulatory risk insurance Aquino promised to prospective participants in his public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.

Power industry, Privatization

P932-billion power debt: the cost of privatization

Energy Sec. Rene Almendras said that consumers should pay part of the enormous P932.21 billion in debts incurred by the energy sector. The rest will be shouldered by government, said Almendras, because they are not allowed to recover the entire P932.21 billion through the universal charge. Government, of course, will use taxpayers’ money and taxpayers are also the consumers of electricity.

In other words, we will absorb the full impact of the huge liabilities of the National Power Corp. (NAPOCOR), Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), and the National Transmission Corp. (TRANSCO). PSALM accounts for 84.2 percent of the P932.21-billion debt. But note that PSALM just absorbed the debts of NAPOCOR as prescribed by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (EPIRA) or Republic Act (RA) 9136. TRANSCO is also a spinoff of NAPOCOR’s privatization under EPIRA. (See Chart)

More financial woes

Before EPIRA was passed in 2001, the debt of NAPOCOR was pegged at $16.5 billion or about P729.14 billion (based on an exchange rate of P44.19 per US dollar, the 2000 average according to central bank data). Proponents of power privatization made the public believe that such heavy debt burden can be reduced by EPIRA. Economic managers of the Arroyo administration, for instance, claimed that the privatization of NAPOCOR will yield a surplus of some P22.29 billion in consolidated public sector deficit (CPSD) by 2009. CPSD includes the budget deficit of the national government and its monitored government-owned and –controlled corporations (GOCCs) and reflects the public sector’s financial position.

But instead of a reduced debt, Filipino taxpayers and consumers are now confronted with a power debt that is more than P203 billion larger than before state-owned power plants and transmission assets were sold to the biggest local compradors and foreign companies. The CPSD for 2010, meanwhile, is expected to hit P281.3 billion. Government ended up more indebted and bankrupt, while the people oppressed thrice over – by servicing the debt through taxes, by enduring lack of social services as funds are siphoned off by debt servicing, and by paying exorbitant monthly electricity bills to cover among others payment for NAPOCOR debts.

This is the cost of the privatization of state assets that we have been paying for in the name of so-called fiscal consolidation, which by the way is the favorite buzzword today of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and unsurprisingly being echoed by Aquino’s finance officials. President Noynoy Aquino also made it clear that privatization, including through public-private partnership (PPP), will be among the main pillars of his medium-term economic program.

Stranded costs

As mentioned, bulk of the power sector’s debt, P785.09 billion, represents PSALM obligations, which it absorbed from NAPOCOR under EPIRA. Specifically, these are called stranded debts and stranded contract costs. Stranded debts refer to any unpaid financial obligations of NAPOCOR which have not been liquidated by the proceeds from the sale and privatization of its assets. Stranded contract costs refer to the excess of the contracted cost of electricity under contracts entered into by NAPOCOR with independent power producers (IPPs) as of Dec. 31, 2000 over the actual selling price of the contracted energy output of such contracts in the market. As mandated by EPIRA, these costs shall be passed on to hapless consumers through the universal charge.

Of the P785.09 billion debt of PSALM, stranded debts account for about P525.76 billion. PSALM has already filed two separate petitions in 2009 and this year before the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to recover the amount through a total rate hike of P1.17 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Meanwhile, PSALM’s stranded contract costs recovery, if approved by the ERC, will result in a rate hike of 69.03 centavos per kWh. Total rate hike due to stranded costs recovery thus could reach P1.86 per kWh that shall be reflected in the universal charge.

Privatization proceeds

But how and why did the debts of NAPOCOR/PSALM increase? Ideally, the debt of NAPOCOR should have been settled by the proceeds from the privatization of its power generation plants and other assets. This, however, did not happen as the sale of power plants has been greatly delayed and investor appetite hampered by among others lack of guaranteed markets through supply contracts and irregularities in the bidding process. Consequently, government has been forced to continue maintaining the unsold power plants and in the process incurred more debts.

EPIRA has only surpassed the 70-percent mark in privatized assets and contracted capacities early this year, and even this is still unofficial since the accomplishment counts Angat dam that is currently under question before the Supreme Court (SC). So far, PSALM has clinched privatization deals worth a total of $6.7 billion ($3.47 billion for power plants and $3.23 billion for contracted capacities) while the privatization of TRANSCO yielded $3.9 billion. But the privatization revenues as well as income from remaining power plants are not enough to cover the financial obligations of PSALM to creditors as well as to NAPOCOR’s old IPP contracts. In 2009, for instance, debt service maturities and obligations to IPPs reached $2.45 billion (about P116.72 billion, based on the 2009 average exchange rate), dwarfing the P10-billion income PSALM generated from the still unprivatized power plants during the same period.

Furthermore, we have also learned recently that PSALM has incurred “privatization-related expenses” that it integrated in its calculation of recoverable stranded costs. These include a privatization bonus for PSALM officials and employees amounting to P80.9 million as well as privatization consultancy fees worth P118 million.

Sweetheart deals

And how and why did NAPOCOR incur such huge debts prior to EPIRA? Since the time of the Cory Aquino administration, government has been entering into various PPP deals with private corporations to build power plants under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law or RA 7718. To entice investors, government forged “sweetheart deals” with them. Government agreed to shoulder all the risks associated with market demand, fuel cost and foreign exchange fluctuation. The “take or pay” clause in these onerous contracts required NAPOCOR to pay 70 percent to 100 percent of the capacity of an IPP (capacity fee), whether electricity is actually delivered and used or not. (Read a 2004 article I wrote about these sweetheart deals here.)

In a 2002 review IPP contracts, an interagency committee found out that at least 26 contracts are fraught with financial issues, meaning they contain provisions (take or pay, fuel cost guarantee, etc) that are financially disadvantageous and burdensome for government. The then Arroyo administration set up the IPP review body amid strong public protest against exorbitant electricity rates. The table below lists these financially onerous IPP contracts. Unfortunately, government did not rescind these contracts after warnings from the foreign creditors and power firms that doing so would undermine investor confidence in the country.

Today, these debts are approaching the P1-trillion mark and the Aquino administration wants us – as consumers and taxpayers – to shoulder the burden. We should not honor these illegitimate debts. We should not allow PSALM to further hike power rates in order to recover NAPOCOR’s stranded costs through the universal charge. NAPOCOR’s debts should at least be renegotiated with creditors and the 2002 review of IPP contracts must be revisited in order to find ways to substantially reduce the debt burden. EPIRA must be finally repealed to stop the power sector’s financial bleeding.

The vicious cycle of privatization, debt, and exorbitant electricity rates must be stopped from further oppressing the people, especially the poor. Unfortunately, the policy direction of President Aquino points to more privatization, more debt, and more exorbitant electricity rates.

A Radical's Nut

Notes on Philippine economy and politics

Tag Archives: debt

SONA 2017: What’s in it for China in Duterte’s ‘Build, Build, Build’?

Junking the Marcosian debt policy for people’s needs

Martial Law legacy: debt servicing, top priority from Macoy to Noynoy

ADB: Anti-Development Bank

Aquino’s 2012 budget: Diretso sa tubo

SONA 2011: Making sense of Aquino’s facts and figures (part 2)

The curious case of NAPOCOR debts

The role of foreign lenders, investment banks, and credit rating agencies in Philippine power sector reform

MRT commuters face 222 percent increase in debt servicing thru fare hike

P932-billion power debt: the cost of privatization