Consumers as victims

BANTAY GOBYERNO

Ike Señeres

After all these years, I have gotten used to paying for toll roads, but every now and then, I still wonder why I still have to pay for tolls, when in fact I know that I have already paid many taxes that would have enabled the government to subsidize the construction of all public highways, not to mention the fact that there is even a specific Road Users Tax for that purpose.

I also wonder why the toll rates keep going up, when in fact all fixed assets in general are actually amortized for long periods, meaning to say that toll rates are supposed to be going down as the assets are being depreciated.

Well, at least I am not wondering why the toll business is so very attractive to private investors, meaning that there is really a lot of money to be made in that business. I could only imagine that if the government could operate those toll roads as efficiently as the private operators do, then there might even be no need for taxes to be collected. As it stands now, the consumers who are the taxpayers seem to be victimized twice, firstly when they pay taxes and no roads are built, and secondly when they have to pay for the tolls even after they have paid their taxes.

Getting 2 mbps after paying “up to” 10 mbps is just like getting 2 kilos of rice after paying for 10 kilos. In the case of internet speed, it is very difficult to check whether or not the telcos actually short changed the consumers or not, because they are not really reporting to the consumers whether the speed is as fast as they promised or not.

Well, even if the telcos would actually report the actual internet speeds and it is discovered that the speed is below what they promised, they will just tell the consumer that they only said “up to”, meaning to say that any speed below 10 mbps still does not constitute a breach of contract on their part.

The truth is, all of that is really moot and academic, because the telcos do not sign Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with individual customers, meaning that they are really not under any obligation to deliver a guaranteed speed at all. I tell you, selling internet services is a much better business than selling rice, because in the case of rice, the customer will kill you if you short change him.

Ever since I could remember, the electric companies have never ever refunded their consumers for the time they are not providing electricity during brownouts. Again, that is similar to the telcos who get away with not delivering the internet speeds that they are promising.     

Aside from that, the telcos actually get away with dropped calls, cut calls and garbled calls, because they never ever refund their customers for their shortcomings. Well, it seems that the power companies are able to get away with murder, because they not only have to refund for their cut services, they also have the privilege of being subsidized for their inefficiencies and stupidities, because that is what your additional payments for “systems loss” are all about.

Well, that is like being punished for something that you did not do, and seeing the culprit smile at you as if with sinister vengeance. As if that is not enough, they also have the privilege of charging consumers for “foreign currency adjustment”, meaning to say that they are not affected by dollar exchange rates, because the consumers have to absorb all these costs.

Over the years, I have heard many stories about the so-called oligarchs who are controlling public utilities such as gas, water, power and the internet. I really could not get to the bottom of that, but what I could say for now is that it would be a realistic goal to take over the control of these public utilities by way of joint cooperatives actions.

              No, I am not talking about revolution or nationalization, and instead I am taking about investing in these companies and leveraging with them so that in the end, we could get what we want from them, including our rebates, discounts and refunds. The fact is, most if not all of these companies that own the public utilities are publicly listed; therefore the rich cooperatives could just buy stocks from them in the market.

It is even possible that many coop members are already stock members of PLDT, and they could consolidate their stock ownerships into common proxies. If not that, the coops could decide to buy in bulk from the telcos and thus get a big discount.

Not that I would want to sound too optimistic, but I believe that if we put our money together, the victims might even become the victors.

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