On the morning of September 26, 2009 distress calls were received by relatives of people trapped in various low lying areas from Quezon City to Marikina, to Cainta and Taguig. The calls were either through text messages or cellular calls in areas were landlines no longer worked, downed by a tropical cyclone or inundated by raging floodwaters.
By ten that morning the cellular airwaves were congested and the pleas, largely unheeded by bungling authorities, had started to sound inconsolable as flood waters quickly rose to second storey heights and people started clambering up rooftops and powerlines. Images of desperation, panic, even real-time death started flooding cyberspace captured by camera-phones and transmitted to helpless relatives, there relayed, first, to television stations, and eventually, around the world.
By midday, the services of at least one cellular provider started going awry. Its calls, images and texts were no longer getting through and it seemed only one still had its facilities largely intact, working and relaying ever more frantic calls for help.
From the recent Cyclone Ondoy crisis we cite the exemplary services provided by one telecommunications company (Telco) as an eloquent argument against attempts to con taxes simply because the sector is vulnerable to state fleecing. Attempts that included the demonization of providers as avaricious Ferengi.
While mass media has long been vital in disseminating information during a crisis, the Ondoy experience highlights the indispensability of direct communications independent of government infrastructure. Unlike mass media this sector is express and private, intimately connecting the crisis-stricken with the rest of the world.
Of note, private telecommunications providers stood out not simply for its extraordinary services but as concrete rationale debunking attempts to milk the industry on the basis of the state’s shortcomings.
Here we refer to a specific counterpoint. In the aftermath of scandalous episodes of gross spending to fatten pork-belly blubber to celebrate a conjugal collaboration in Washington D.C., one banquet benefactor immediately attempted to recharge government’s quickly-depleting coffers by taxing a lifeline.
As the fiscal deficit is again on the rise, he targeted Telcos. His excise on texts sought to fleece Php 35 billion yearly as House Bill no. 6625, the tax on text bill, passed by the House Ways and Means committee, was to squeeze incremental lard to bloat government’s Php 1.541 trillion budget for election year 2010.
Against fiscal and political agenda, and government’s revenue-generating failures arrayed against scandalous spending, last week’s displays of corporate responsibility by a leading Telco can be appreciated under a different light apart from shadows cast by politicians who demonize corporations to pander to media.
Due to the failures of telecommunications infrastructure, public information and disaster preparedness, the criticality of private providers cannot be overemphasized. We refer to the roles played by companies in empowering individuals through two-way communications when they are most powerless.
Ondoy highlighted these.
One, cellular phones kept victims connected and provided the means to literally call for help.
Two, where media could not go, the victimized self-transformed into virtual journalists, capturing images, transmitting these to the world stage, and more importantly, to people who could help where government could not.
Three, texting in this country is an indispensable lifeline as crises are our defaults. Its prevalence here resulted, not from government efforts, but from government dereliction and the necessity to provide where government did not.
All told, because the slack had been taken up by private Telcos, it is predatory and opportunistic for the derelict to tax based on an anomaly it had created through deliberate disregard and delinquency.
Note corporate heroism. Upon Ondoy’s wrath Telcos had immediately set up free call and charging centers in Marikina to as far as Arayat, Pampanga. Before government could mobilize, with an affiliated landline providers, utilizing its employees, the company erected relief distribution centers and medical stations in eight different areas.
Last week’s crisis focused on the essential lifeline arguments underlying the public’s opposition to taxing texts. Last Tuesday, political entities largely responsible for the inadequacy of preparedness quickly reacted in a morally warped manner.
Before Ondoy, the proposed incremental text excise was Php 0.05 per message. Upon flooding, trash twirls in the turbid tempest. And then it surfaces. In Ondoy’s aftermath, even as floodwaters remained, congressmen from hardly-hit districts struck and jacked up the lifeline excise ostensibly to inflate their contingency funds.
Their timing was perfect. Within weeks they are required to file candidacies for 2010.
Popularity: 1% [?]
We are now in the disaster era of the Planet Earth. Immediate communication is vital. In the U.S., we have the 911 calling center
of every state. Where anyone can call in any emergency. It works and
it save lives. We should enhance the communication facilities. Public or privately owned. The government is taxing everything in
its trying to shore up depleted public coffers. It is caused by their
own incompwtence.
You have to admit, that’s pretty sneaky. GMA declaring the entire country as under a state of emergency, allowing ALL lgu’s to have access to extra funds. If it has not happened yet, Fajardo or some slacker will justify the move as simply Keynesian — sending more money to every corner of the archipelago to “..stimulate the economy, Merry Christmas!”.
At the Ateneo de Manila in the early 80′s, there were two Economics professors teaching Economics 101 and Macroeconomics. One was a diminutive bespectacled female teacher who wore short mini-skirts to class. One of the attractions in taking her class was that the platform on which teachers stood to teach was polished to degrees that reflected objects above it. Needless to say, her students would diligently polish those floors before class started.
The other professor was an aging Jesuit named Rev. Michael McPhellin, S.J.. He was considered a “terror” on campus.
The mini-skirted teacher was a Keynesian. Her name was Gloria Macapagal.
Rev. Mcphellin was a non-Keynesian.
Between the two, the latter’s class was always full and only those that the class could not accomodate spilled over to Gloria’s.
Even then, she was not “well-liked”.
Regards,
Dean
Well, well, well, that’s quite a pretty grave accusation, Dean. Are you implying that Ateneo students those days were not the “macho” type? Do you mean those students who diligently polished the platform were the exception than the rule those days in Ateneo? My, oh my, blackshama?
Dean:
Apart from the levity of the intended mischief planned with the polished platform, your little narrative brought back a question that remains unexpressed to this day.
The American Jesuit always had his classes full while, while those of the Filipino not. I hope you did not intend to carelessly imply that she was less of a teacher than the Jesuit. She could have been as good as him, right?
I ask because it also happened to us, with me included, during our time. We preferred almost reflexively the American Jesuits over the Filipinos, including Filipino Jesuits, as teachers.
Though I suspect I have an answer that may appear uncomplimentary, still I ask, do you have an answer?
I would like to add that when I was accorded the rare opportunity to teach Econ 101 in the old alma mater after finishing only an undergraduate course, I took a different path in my teaching. I dispensed with the expected textbook, and decided to use instead that of former CB Gov. A. Castillo, which I thought was more appropriate given its being essentially framed in the Philippine context.
Dean,
My blood fairly boils.
The thing I don’t understand is why citizens don’t band together to form a Civil Liberties Union style legal machine that can attack the untoward presidential fiats or legislative self-dealing, reveal the thieves, or at least tie their hands. COMELEC is dealing with such a force now and it seems to be a valid tool.
Joe
I am really hoping to see this happen, for all filipinos in all walk of life, to unite, to band together as one and bring down the forces of graft and corruption both in public and private entities..punish to those who committed crimes against the country…for me this is justice
People don’t understand and don’t know how to start.
Sir Joe,
The problem is getting this information to the masses. And the next problem is getting half to understand what this means and getting the half to awaken from their apathetic slumber.
I just wish… No use wishing sigh.
Angel, no problem there. The people know and they’re angry, very angry, and that’s the reason why they’re giving the president a very low negative, repeat NEGATIVE 38% approval rating.
My American friend Joe is a gentle and very kindly fellow so might just want to treat this problem of governance with kid’s glove, but the people, feeling the rumblings in their gut, is losing patience and, if all else failed, will be ready to “surge the gates” anytime.
Waking up the other half is easy. But even when they’re awake they’re so lazy they’ll just shrug and mumble, “let’s Move On”, or, “Wait for 2010″.
Bert,
Peace, bro.
But if I knew how to round up the services of some hard-nosed attorneys willing to litigate American style, without getting thrown out of the country, or shot, I fear I would not be so mild mannered and kind.
Joe
May I ask Dean,
Was the bill on taxing Text messaging passed?
Dear Angel,
It was passed by at the committee level which is the third and final reading. The bill then goes to the House Plenary. Before it did though, the committee members increased the tax rates on messaging and calls and stipulated that the increase will be applied to an increase in the contingency funds of the LGUs.
There are other things these guys slipped past the public during the floods. Another was the junking of the impeachment charges against the Ombudsman.
“Like theives in the night…”
Regards,
Dean
Is there a way to stop this Dean? I mean, the people have been living with too much taxes already, isn’t the Government charging tax on the Cellphone companies that provide service? Not to mention the citizen buying the load gets taxed eVAT too, I remember buying a 500 php cellcard and my receipt registered a 12% vat. and now using that load I’m gonna get taxed per SMS/CALL seems a little bit too much.
Angel: Congress voted on it (and surely, Malacanang was pushing GMA’s tax policies). Another reminder on how important May2010 is.
One would hope that voters will pay attention if Villar will mirror GMA tax-policies, and if not, what will Villar do different.
IF the cellphone infrastructure was overwhelmed by the call volume during Ondoy, then asking for a tax makes sense using this cold-blooded logic of economics</b.. Making the commodity more expensive reduces the demand on the commodity as people stop making low-value calls. There is then more bandwidth available for high-value calls (like calling for help when one is stranded on a rooftop).
And I still do not see why we civic-mindedness by one telecommunications company (Telco) is an argument against a five-cent or a twenty-five-centavos per text-message tax, especially if the revenue raised can be used for improving public school infrastructure or to build the still not constructed Paranaque-spillway (from Laguna Bay to Manila Bay).
The complaint is “…whenever Congress raises funds for needed public infrastructure, then they raid 20% or 30% of the raised amount as “corruption money”". The problem is the corruption(20% or 30%), not the raising of funds for needed public infrastructure.
UP n,
The problem is that the teleco’s are profiteering now. PLDT (owner of Smart) pulled out P 37 billion in dividends in 2008 on earnings of P 35 billion by essentially cashing in on prior capital investments (depreciation). They chose to greedily pack the wallets of their (foreign) shareholders rather than invest in improving services. I say regulate them better, and tax THEM instead of the citizens they are abandoning.
Joe
Dear Up n Grad,
According to the bill on tax on texts, the proceeds of the taxes collected will not go directly to infrastructure but instead to contingent funds for LGUs. When at the LGU level, the local officials would then be free to interpret “contingency” as they please. It may still go to infrastructure such as the building of state hospitals, emergency telecomunications centers, dykes or floodways.
Even a “911″ system as proposed by some in FV. Note however, that on the NDCC site during the height of Ondoy, three of the emergency numbers flashed were missing some digits. Can you imagine the frustration of a person perched on a powerline dialing those numbers as his phone battery starts to die,… should he have the numbers on his phone’s directory?
Or it may go the way of those 300 fiberglass boats budgetted, ordered, and paid for by the Defense Department (under Sec. Cruz) and then delivered to the National Disaster Coordinating Committee.
The ones that no one seems to be able to find.
I agree with you that the problem is corruption and not the raising of funds. Without the former (the corruption), the latter ( raising additional funds) might not be needed. One example is the call to purchase boats which makes sense because we are an archipelago anyway with coastal towns below sea (river, lake) level.
Check out the previous budget and one might find that indeed we bought those boats. Or at least we budgetted them and orders were made for their purchase. In Ondoy’s floods only 17 out of the 300 were found and used.
Regards,
Dean
Dean: the “911″ versus 3-or-4 phone numbers is a Telco problem, not a lawmaking problem. What I mean by that is (step-1) “government” can say “here is the contract, you give us an emergency-phone-number response system” and (step-2) the service-provider buys the proper hardware and software so that one number – 911 (or even 54321) — has behind it 12 or 36 lines that are then handled by live people. Of course, if the contract specifications asked for a peak-handling capacity that is much lower than the call-volume during “Ondoy”, the blame is on the government-procurement-office, not on the service-provider.
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PS: My suspicion is it is still Marcos-era emergency-phone-number response system that is operational.
Filipinos should lament that “In Ondoy’s floods only 17 out of the 300 were found and used”. It will take work to figure out why only 17 or 300.
For example, almost 80%-or-higher sure, Ellen tordesillas would say “It is GMA’s fault that only 17 of 300 were found.” Ellen would be wrong.
Without any information, I can do this back-of-the-envelope number-crunching:
– 300 boats, so 100 Visayas, 100 Mindanao leaves 100-Luzon;
– Southern Luzon 33, Northern Luzon 33, metro-Manila 33.
17 of 33 — which means 16 unavailable. Wow!!! That is unacceptable!!!
But look at Marikina. For example, Marikina has 15-plus boats. Marikina, however, only put 3 of its boats to use during Ondoy.
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There is enough information to say “… get angry”. There is not enough information to say “…how angry should I get???”.
Viewed differently, for days, these were sorely inoperative after Ondoy unleashed its wrath or anticlimactic downpour:
One. MERALCO bogged down in many affected areas.
Two. GLOBE, SMART, just followed suit with too many cellphone users unable to communicate to their affected loved ones, relatives, friends during the height of the typhoon.
Against that backdrop, shouldn’t an embargo be in order? Shouldn’t these public utilities be ‘sanctioned’ more appropriately for its inabiliy to “service” when such “services” are too crucial during those crucial moments?
The telecom companies are making Ondoy and Pepeng convenient scapegoats. Their alibis of ‘traffic volume’ just don’t hold water to my mind. THEY SHOULD INDEMNIFY ALL CELLPHONE USERS/OWNERS.