If Petilla can do it, why can’t the others?

TRADITIONS DIE hard, specially the stupidly harmful ones. Take our celebration on New Year’s Eve. The whole world welcomes the New Year cheerfully and with hope for a better life ahead. But the way we Filipinos do it puts everyone, including the young and the innocent, in harm’sway.

We make ear-splitting noise until the wee hours of the morning, not to rejoice and make others happy, but to disturb, bother and scare them. The more people we frighten, the more memorable and thrilling the experience. Some burn tires in the middle of the road in wanton disregard of the law. Yet the police do not apprehend them. Next day, the stench of burnt tires pervades the air and the streets look ugly. Meanwhile, wealthy families in exclusive villages spend thousands of pesos on fireworks that seriously harm or even kill others, if not burn a neighbor’s house. So there goes the Filipino version of New Year fun. Goodbye pera (cash), welcome perablems (cash problems).

The governments of other countries have budgets for New Year fireworks. These fireworks are professionally showcased for the public and whole families to enjoy watching at the park, or from the safety of the living room—on TV. But to Filipinos, this is not thrilling at all. Filipino culture leads many families to think that they should impress neighbors that they have more money to burn. So, fireworks have become an interfamily competition. Worse, the irresponsible ones fire their guns into the air mindless of where the bullets land. When the bullets injure or kill somebody, only then would come the regrets, the blame game, and then the investigations that lead to nowhere.

We are the only country where our hospitals are put on alert for casualties of an otherwise happy occasion. Talk of foresight, we seem to know that disaster is coming but our tradition would rather not prevent it. The hospitals anyway are ready for any eventuality.

We are a pathetic nation of fatalists. Instead of preventing accidents or deaths, we thrill at the thought of surviving the “fire of the dragons” by sheer luck. Even before midnight, the stubborn victims of a foolish tradition are brought to hospitals with bloodied faces, missing fingers, if not fading lives.

Why the noise-making? Well, the Chinese think it will drive away evil spirits. But must we do what the Chinese do? What we should drive away are corrupt politicians and the evils that drug Filipinos into becoming copycats of other people. Instead of making noise from firecrackers, I believe that it is more enjoyable, more Filipino, and above all, safer if our communities hold traditional musicals and dances at town squares, to be followed by a Thanksgiving Mass. Or the young ones could hold open-park concerts. Families could gather in traditional reunions—in peace and safety. These gatherings are more in the spirit of unity, abundance, hope and the optimism that come with the New Year. Then we can all welcome 2014 safely. THE NEWS that Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla tendered his resignation for his failure to meet his self-imposed deadline in restoring electricity in areas ravaged by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” is all over the air. The President may have ultimately refused to accept his resignation and whether or not that was part of a ploy, it can nevertheless be said that Petilla had the guts to place his head on the chopping board.

We wonder, however, if the other inept officials in the energy family, particularly Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Zenaida Ducut and Philippine Electricity Market Corp. head Mel Ocampo can do the same.

As head of the Department of Energy, Petilla is equally responsible for the government’s failure to stop the P4.15/kWh rate increase imposed by Meralco. But Ducut and Ocampo, who are in the frontline and supposed to be the first persons to detect market failure and to protect consumers’ welfare, stood idle in the face of the onrushing tsunami of power hikes. They therefore should go.

Truth is, throughout their tenures, they have consistently failed to discharge their duties of regulating the power industry properly. The latest fiasco is just the culmination of years of ineptitude and incompetence.

As early as 2012, they were already supposedly aware of scheduled maintenance shutdowns and yet they did nothing to prevent the largest market failure in the power sector. In the process they unduly enriched independent power producers to the tune of P10 billion for a month’s worth of power outages!

They should resign based on the principle of command responsibility. At the least, they allowed the electricity market to be gamed, and therefore it can be said that they are a party to the reported collusion among power firms.

Ducut and Ocampo should be investigated for possible charges of economic sabotage.

It’s also time for the regime of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act to go.