Malacañang Palace to go after the Anonymous Antipork hackers

Malacañang on Monday vowed to go after the group of antipork hackers, who defaced the website of the Office of the Ombudsman and 37 other government offices.

"There are existing laws covering that and proper action will be taken," Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said in a press conference.

Saying there were "sufficient avenues for free expression," Coloma said there was "no need to resort to illegal acts such as the hacking of government websites."

"There is sufficient democratic space for any individual or group. That's why there's no need to commit illegal acts like the one that they did," he added.

Calling itself Anonymous Philippines, the group hacked into the government websites to encourage the public to join Tuesday's protest action against the pork barrel at the House of Representatives.

A major target was the website of the Office of the Ombudsman, which is looking into the plunder allegation against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Bong Revilla Jr. and Jinggoy Estrada in connection with the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

Also charged with plunder are Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the scam, and 34 others.

Willing to listen

Senators downplayed the hacker group's call for antipork protests in Congress but said they were willing to listen.

Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sen. Ralph Recto said that any Filipino, including Anonymous Philippines, was well within his right to stage protests outside Congress.

"Protest is part of our democratic space. We're used to that. They can always express their opinion and we will listen," Drilon said on the phone from Hong Kong on Sunday night.

"Whether or not it is justified is beside the point. We have democratic space, and they can express their views. We will listen," he added.

Recto said "democratic expression should never be feared."

Hooray

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III said the hackers had a right to be fed up with all the looting. "Hooray for them," he said.

While it apologized for the inconvenience, Anonymous Philippines said this was the only way to convey the message to Filipinos who are "tired of this government and the politicians who only think about themselves."

"To the corrupt—fear us," it said.

Members of the Senate and House have been skewered for months over the large-scale misuse of their pork barrel exposed by the Inquirer and the Commission on Audit.

On top of this, they've had to fend off criticism that they received additional pork barrel allocations from Malacañang after the Senate convicted Chief Justice Renato Corona for dishonesty in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth in May 2012.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV downplayed the impact of Anonymous Philippines' "call of action."

"I believe Filipinos will not follow anonymous virtual movements," he said in a text message on Sunday.

No one to listen

If the protests push through on Tuesday, most, if not all, of the lawmakers wouldn't be there to listen to them. Congress is on Halloween break and will resume sessions on Nov. 18.

But Trillanes said Filipinos should "be alarmed about their capability to hack government websites as this could compromise state operations and data storage."

As they grappled with the backlash against the pork barrel scandal, some senators led by Drilon, Francis Escudero and Vicente Sotto III have pushed for the total scrapping of their Priority Development Assistance Fund from the 2014 national budget.

And ahead of the hearing on the plunder complaint in the Ombudsman, the Senate blue ribbon committee is resuming its inquiry into the scam on Thursday to hear the testimony of Napoles and the whistle-blowers. - Inquirer

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Meralco unit to bid out deal for 460 Megawatt Mauban Coal-fired power plant facilities

Mauban Quezon Coal Fired power plant. Photo: alvinrexlucero.wordpress.com

The power-generating arm of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) will bid out the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the 460-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant in Mauban, Quezon, before the year ends.

Meralco PowerGen (MGen) and New Growth B.V., a wholly owned subsidiary of the EGCO Group of Thailand, agreed in August to develop the coal-fired power plant targeted for commissioning in 2017.

MGen Executive Vice President and General Manager Aaron Domingo said last week that full development activities are currently underway.

For instance, the company has started to issue bid invites for the EPC contract.

"Invitations to bid to a short-list of EPC candidates have been issued. Firm EPC bids are due by the last quarter of this year," Domingo said.

The company has also issued bid invites for interested financial advisors. "Invitations to bid to a shortlist of potential financial advisors have been issued. Financial advisor to be appointed within the last quarter of this year," added Domingo.

The target financial closing for the project is expected by the second or third quarter of 2014.

MGen will own 51 percent of the power facility, including rights to assign up to 2 percent to an approved assignee, while New Growth B.V. holds the remaining 49 percent.

EGCO, the owner and operator of Quezon Power Philippines Ltd. (QPPL), also owns a coal plant in the same municipality that the Thai firm acquired from US-based Intergen last year. The same power plant has a 25-year agreement to supply Meralco with electricity.

Back then, QPPL Managing Director Frank Thiel said EGCO intends to partner again with Meralco. "We don't consider Meralco just as an offtaker. Meralco has been a partner all along. Without them, this project will not exist. We're working with them, we engage with them every other week to update them on where we are in the project,"  Thiel said.

Thiel said EGCO intends to expand its presence in the Philippines, whether in traditional or renewable power generation. These may include hydropower and natural gas power sources. – Business Mirror

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Philippines to pursue two Free Trade Agreements (FTA) in Europe

Philippine Government is sending a team to Europe later this month for talks about possible free trade agreements (FTA) with two European blocs, a Trade official said last week.

           "We will be sending a delegation to Europe third or fourth week of November to continue technical discussions on a possible Philippines-EU (European Union) FTA in Brussels and Philippines-EFTA (European Free Trade Association) FTA in Geneva," Trade Undersecretary Adrian S. Cristobal, Jr. told reporters last week.

Mr. Cristobal said the Philippines is still at the scoping stage, or determining which sectors will be part of an FTA, with the 28-member European Union.

Talks about a possible trade agreement between the Philippines and the EU first began on Feb. 9, 2009, after the latter's plan of pursuing a region-to-region approach with the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) failed due to the political difficulties of negotiating an FTA that included Myanmar.

ASEAN groups the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Lao PDR.

Singapore is the first ASEAN country to conclude an FTA -- signed December 2012 -- with the EU.

The EU is also currently negotiating FTAs with Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

For the EFTA, Mr. Cristobal said the mission will continue to explore the benefits of forging an FTA with the four-member economic bloc composed of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Norway.

The Trade official earlier said that talks about a possible trade pact with EFTA began during the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 2011 but was "fast-tracked" by the visit to the Philippines of Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs Marie-Gabrielle Ineichein-Fleisch in June.

Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo and Ms. Ineichen-Fleisch signed in June a memorandum of understanding to start dialogues for a potential FTA between the two countries which, if approved, could be the Philippines' first such agreement with a European country.

Currently, the Philippines has only one bilateral FTA, the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.

However, as an ASEAN member, the Philippines also enjoys the bloc's trade agreements with Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cristobal said that the market share of garments, electronics, and furniture exporters, among others, will be reduced should the Philippines remain outside the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP).

"If we're not going to be part of the TPP, our neighbors -- Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei -- will get preferential tariff for their goods, and our market share will be diminished," he said.

"We cannot afford not to be part of that agreement. If and when they open a second batch of members, we intend to be part of that second batch. We've been doing consultations and we're going to commission specific impact studies," he added.

In April, the government said the country is not yet ready to join the TPP given structural limitations and will require changing the country's laws.

"We're not yet ready for the TPP, we have to do some more homework first on our environment, labor and investment, on the equity side because we have many restrictions," Mr. Domingo had earlier said.

Negotiations are ongoing for the establishment of the TPP, which aims to further liberalize trade in the Asia-Pacific region. Twelve countries -- Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the US -- are currently in talks to form the TPP, which are slated to be concluded by year's end.

The trade pact, once it materializes, would cover two-fifths of the world economy. –

By: Daryll Edisonn D. Saclag / Business World Online

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