NON-TARIFF barriers? What are these? It has to mean red tape. What does red tape mean? Red tape means corruption opportunities. And corruption opportunities sooner or later mean corruption.
Last week’s Administrative Order No. 13 signed by President Duterte is curiously wishy-washy. Entitled “Removing Non-Tariff Barriers and Streamlining Administrative Procedures on the Importation of Agricultural Products” the contents do not live up to its promising title.
“Streamlining administrative procedures” is meaningless unless there are specific instructions as to what precisely should be done. This is one instance where nitty-gritty is vital. But there is none. Perhaps Duterte should recruit Heidi Mendoza!
For many years we have been aiming for rice self-sufficiency. Former secretary of Agriculture Alcala claimed from 2010 that we would reach self-sufficiency within two years. But we never did. Instead, we are probably the biggest rice importer in the world.
Former economic planning secretary Cielito Habito notes that Singapore is the second most food-secure country in the world, yet imports 90 percent of its food requirements.
Mr. Habito asserts that aiming for rice self-sufficiency makes rice more expensive because uneconomic marginal lands are being used. Instead, we should be using this land for other crops like cacao, coffee, and other exportable products, he says.
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PECO
An interesting recent development is the high ranking of Panay Electric Company (PECO) according to the “System Average Interruption Frequency Index” (SAIFI). This reports that PECO is eighth out of 146 distribution utilities. I have not heard of SAIFI before and wonder if those responsible for this data could produce more complete information. This would include the period over which interruptions occurred and whether it is possible to produce data showing the number of hours of power interruptions for both private sector companies and cooperatives.
Panay News readers who live in the area covered by Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) would be interested to know how Ceneco compares with PECO. Ceneco’s consumers suffer significantly from unscheduled brownouts. How does Ceneco rank in the SAIFI league table?
Many years ago a family member wrote to the National Electrification Administration (NEA) in the mildest possible terms expressing concern about Ceneco’s unscheduled brownouts. Regrettably, Ceneco’s response was petulant, aggressive and misleading. Ceneco’s then president claimed that the brownouts were due to the Azkals hosting a match at Bacolod’s Panaad stadium. This may have explained one but only one out of very many unscheduled brownouts.
Sadly NEA’s response, provided by Ceneco, merely quoted the Azkal excuse.
Consumers in all fields generally receive inadequate or no responses from government entities when providing details of inadequate service.
I wonder if there should be a consumer czar who handles complaints from all sectors./PN
