If you would think about it, the administration has been attacking the Lopez family recently. From ABS CBN, to Meralco, to North Luzon Expressway, and to all the other companies the Lopez Family owns (ie. Maynilad, Sky Cable, First holdings, etc. etc.), they have been bombarded with issues like the Wowowee incident a couple years ago and the system loss issue with the Meralco. If you would ask me, I would agree with the administration with what they are doing against the Lopezes for one simple reason: The Lopezes have monopolized basic needs, and because they have the power of monopoly in their hands, they abuse this power in such a way that they make the community suffer for their selfish benefits.
A good example of this? The Meralco issue. Since they have practically dominated the competition for electrical distribution, what they did is to make the price of their services sky-high though billing consumers various fees that the consumer is not aware of nor has an idea what and why there is such fee included to our electrical bills. And what makes that worse is that they do not actually pay their electricity bills for their offices since they get the money from the consumers, hence, making the consumers pay for their bills. (Haven't you wondered why the Meralco Building in Pasig is heavily lighted at night almost everyday? Think about it.)
As with the issue of the kidnapping of Ces Drilon . . . well yes it may be Ces Drilon's fault for going to Mindanao without being aware of the risks, but this whole issue just adds up to the upcoming issues and cases against the Lopez Family.
Feel free to comment, criticize, or add insights to this.
Duey Guison
3 comments:
I think being a "journalist" i can see the perspective of this entry. And that i think you were able to present in outlined form your points or argument. But I would like insert some critique regarding the first point, the Cess Drilon Kidnapping. One, I find it odd that people, especially the media/journalist habitually generalize and compact the insurgency, banditry, moro problematic into one area in the Phils, MINDANAO. I think people should learn the Phil Geography every once in a while. Its only in southern Mindanao, more precisely Sulu, Basilan, which are separate small island. I put concern on this becuase this kind of generalization puts a heavy weight on 1: the image of mindanao, and 2: the values, lifestyle of the locals. We dont refer to NPA as Insurgencies in LUZON right. i recommend to any discourse which might touch this topic to be focused on the space, so as not to overgeneralize, hence sensationalize the facts. Second i think journalism also has its own unspoken rules of conduct w/ respect to the business ( yes it is a business none the less). But what Cess did was irresponsible and down right ignorant too. she openly admitte that in one interview. This type of journailstic adeventurism sometimes do put their own lives at risk not because of higher values but rather just due to plain recklessness.
Other than that i do like the clear way you presented your points and that it allows for easy critical reading.
well if you would look at it there are many possible ways to target this . . likewise it is a mortal sin to assume whose fault it is . . . the best way to determine the culprit of this is by analyzing the series of events that happened; in this case, Cess admitted that it was partly her fault for her journalistic adventurism but we should also put in consideration the other angle of the story that is the involvement of the town mayor and his son in the kidnapping ;)
Duey Guison
I don't think that it's actually right to pinpoint all the faults to the Lopezes. In the first place, it's not JUST their fault. Running a society is based on people relationships, and with this, everyone is not just involved, everyone has a part in it: not just the Lopezes, not just the government, but also the people.
This is not to say that no one is doing anything to address or make sense of the monopolizing of basic needs in the country. Meralco puts a detailed distribution of costs in their bills. They find a way to explain these costs to consumers via documentaries, news and commercials even (and etc.). The government isn't entirely doing nothing either. Remember the subsidy of P500 given to electricty consumers who consume a specific amount of electricity or less? The people, on the other hand, exercise our right to complain and to ask what is due to us.
According to a documentary I watched in GMA regarding the Meralco issue, the Lopezes openly admitted that they charge the system loss to their subscribers. You're right when you said that most consumers have no idea what's written in the meralco bill. All those distribution charges and so forth can never be understood by the consumers unless explained by Meralco officials but admittedly, when I watched them explain each charge, I still didn't get it. The only part I understood best was the systems loss. Yes, we're angry that Meralco for doing this to us consumers, because we don't really see any point as to why we have to pay for something that we didn't consume, and I find this unfair as well (especially now that we're in a state of practicality and cost-cutting in terms to expenses). What we fail to consider here is that there is also some fault in the people: those who steal electricity by using jumpers, those who pay meter readers to lower their readings, those meter readers who deliberately make a mistake of taking down meter readings, etc. This corruption doesn't only exist within the system (when we say that they make money out of consumers) but also by the people who make use of the system.
I just want to say that before anything else, who are we to say that they deserve the punishment? Can we really blame them for resulting to such matters? We want to think that we know the in and outs of the Lopez businesses as much as let's say, their employees do, but in reality we can't because we're not in their position to know what goes on here and there. We only have our own views, which can at times be biased.
Basically, I think that We shouldn't permanently remove the possibility that they are doing something equivalently "good" as much as we see them doing the "bad" in these businesses of theirs.
-patricia wong
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