LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

Missing roads, Nasecore and ‘Jack’s rice’ power
MARCH L. FIANZA

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- In last Saturday’s special board meeting, Beneco found an ally in Jack’s statement of support to the electric cooperative’s proposed car plan. Jack is none other than the guy Mr. Jack Dulnuan, the practical businessman about town whose popularity ratings do not seem to go down.

According to him, the managers who will be using the cars to be bought (if they are bought) deserve to be compensated for doing their job. “Apay nalaka aya ti agi manage ti Beneco? Agsakit ti ulo. I know that because I am an incorporator and I was the first president,” he said.

The businessman-farmer who owns one of the longest running restaurant businesses in Baguio and Benguet cited some factors in support of his approval of Beneco’s car plan.

“The employees of Beneco were successful in bringing down the systems loss percentage, aside from lessening the number of employees as against an increasing number of consumers,” said the inventor of “Jack’s Rice.” The popular rice-topping is probably the most original in the Cordillera, if not in the whole country.

On the other hand, National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms, Inc. (Nasecore), Cordillera Chapter directors Peter Dumaguing and Catalino Panganiban asked that the car plan be set aside. In a three-page statement, Nasecore understood the benefits that the car plan would give the managers and supervisors, but “it will be costly to Beneco as a whole.”

For his part, former Beneco director and president Steve Busoy suggested that 70 percent of the purchase amount for a car would be shouldered by the employee while the remaining 30 percent would be paid by Beneco, which he said would be a win-win solution to the deadlock.

Whatever, I see many good points in all the speakers’ statements, including GM Gerry Verzosa. I see the proponents and opposition closing in. As of the moment, a win-win alternative is the only thing missing.
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Passing by Tarlac and Pampanga last week, I could not avoid listening to the conversation of the bus driver and the conductor about the overdue opening of another expressway, supposedly the newest in Luzon. Beneath the lahar that is now infusing billions of pesos to the province of Pampanga , another expensive road is waiting to be inaugurated.

This is the unfinished Subic-Clark-Tarlac expressway that was started in 1999. With a little side trip to the internet, I found out that it was worth P15 billion then. Nine years later today, it costs P27 billion.

In fact, price for the expressway is still escalating due to the weekly hike in fuel prices that translate to higher prices in construction material. Aside from that, changes in the expressway’s design and scope also contributed to the escalation in construction cost. The expressway is expected to be worth double its price next year as when it started construction in 1999.

Buses and other motorists have complained about the long delay in travel that the construction has caused. Still, for reasons known only to the players or those involved, the project has yet to be completed.

And the bus driver asks: what is taking them so long to finish the project? Then the conductor remarked in mixed Ilocano – Tagalog: “Di naman talagang kelangan yang expressway na yan… mas kasapulan tayo pay ti kwarta panang urnos ti talon.. humph.. nakangin-ngina pay dayta..’ (The expressway is not badly needed as compared to our needs in agriculture, and it is so expensive).

“Walang kwenta yan” (That’s nothing, the driver quipped). Then he continued talking about the multi-million Caloocan-Bulacan road improvement. Surely, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac expressway construction cost is peanuts compared to the $802 million road improvement from Caloocan to Malolos in Bulacan.

According to Senator Frank Drilon, there is something very wrong in the 32 kilometer road project and that is why the government must have it terminated Based on his computation, Pinoys are paying $25.0625 per kilometer since 2004 for a project which is not moving, or Pinoys are paying $1 million per day for a project that they can not see.

Different people differ in the way they see things. As the bus moved past Pampanga, I thought maybe the conductor grew up in a farm and that ricefields were of more importance to him than constructing luxurious expressways. Support for the agriculture sector was his priority, not any modern road which represents another face of tourism. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com