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Here’s one for Angie, Ralph and Gary

C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S

Jonathan De la Cruz

07/05/2009

Instead of showing their half-a-knowledge with their "half empty, half full" non-debate over oil prices which not one of them can conclusively solve anyway, Secretaries Angie Reyes and Ralph Recto should perhaps devote time and public resources to look for simpler and more do-able measures to ease our energy burdens. To make that effort more productive, they may want to invite Secretary Gary Teves who has the burden of producing the monies which Reyes and Recto and their boys have been misusing with their non-debate on oil prices to join them in this search. In any event, in case these gentlemen are unaware, we have just overtaken Japan as the country with the highest cost of electricity in Asia. Just a year ago, Japan’s per kilowatt hour (kwh) cost stood at 11 cents — the highest in Asia. This year, we have the dubious distinction of beating the world’s second biggest economy by 3 cents/kwh, as we turned in a whooping 14 cents/kwh power cost on the average.

Which is why I have joined Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and the House leadership in calling for a sweeping review of the Epira law. I have also submitted counterpart bills seeking the passage of two amendatory bills meant to substantially reduce our power cost. In the first instance, I joined Cagayan Rep. Sally Ponce Enrile as co-author of the House’s counterpart bill to SB 3147 imposing a uniform 3 percent national franchise tax on all distribution utilities in lieu of a layer of taxes. Heretofore, as a result of migratory and confusing taxation schemes we have had a lot of tax avoidance if not evasion by the utilities. Some claim paying all their taxes at their headquarters, prompting local governments to sue them for non-payment of what these entities claim as local taxes. This has led to lawsuits and harassment which had the effect of slowing down not optimizing the benefits which the country ought to derive from prompt and proper service from these guys.

Additionally, I have submitted a counterpart bill to the Senate President’s SB 3148 seeking to bring down the government’s royalties on indigeneous energy resources including natural gas. During the first hearing on this matter, we were appalled to learn that we are the only country in the world imposing a high 60 percent royalty on indigeneous fuel resources. Worse, the agencies assigned to correctly assess and collect these royalties — DoE, DoF and Neda do not have a common data base on which the government is supposed to work. They are not even sure how much we have collected, much less how much we are supposed to collect as royalties from the producers of these energy sources over the years. By their incoherent and conflicting answers, representatives of these agencies led some of us to believe that we were in fact paying in part, maybe even in full, the royalties and taxes we were supposed to collect from these producers which run in the billions of pesos. This prompted Rep. Exequiel Javier to quip that if we are to collect on these arrears we may not even have to pass new tax bills anymore. The cases of geothermal and now natural gas are instructive in this regard so the three Cabinet members can probably start with those.

Positive energy: Meantime, they may want to take a look at the work of Arizona State University Professor Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist, who has been undertaking a number of studies on what motivates people to care for the environment. Calvini’s feat particularly as it applied to energy consumption was featured in the July issue of The Atlantic. It noted that "...people are mostly oblivious to the impact of the decisions of those around them but they are powerfully affected, without recognizing what it is that is influencing them... At some base level, it’s survival recognition: These are the people who are most like me — we share the same circumstances..." This behavior is what he termed as "social proof" describing it as a primitive instinct similar to the impulses which drive insects to swarm or birds to flock together and which some psychologists often refer to as "peer pressure." To Caldini it is more like peer information, a powerful drive which he believes can be used to save on energy and harnessed for other basic concerns such as water conservation, waste management and the broader area of environmental protection. That is where Caldini’s company positive energy comes in.

Using the results of his studies, the company created a software that "assesses energy usage by neighborhood" to be used to inform those within the peer group of their standing as far as wiser use of electricity is concerned.

The savings in energy consumption within the model area consisting of close to 3,500 households could take 700 households off the grid which is very significant by any measure. That compares very well with Reyes’ multimillion-dollar ADB funded initiative distributing energy saving lightbulbs to various households. In fact, given the results and the expected returns from the light bulb experiment it beats it by a mile according to some estimates. If that is indeed true then we better get in touch with Caldini soonest before he gets swamped with offers from other countries at a very, very minimal cost it can make us cry for having missed out on such a simple measure after years of mindless perorations on "complicated coping measures" such as going after jumpers and the like. If Reyes and Recto are really that concerned about savings and optimizing the use of our resources I am sure there are other ideas worth looking into out there at a cost which can only be considered as very minimal.