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Grab fares surge under opaque algorithm

July 17, 2024/in News /by Kodao Productions

By Karol Ilagan and Federico Acosta Rainis/Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Key findings:

Transportation giant Grab offers a convenient alternative to navigating the country’s busy cities – but at a premium.
Data collected by PCIJ showed that rides of the GrabCar service always included surge fees, the additional cost computed by an algorithm to get more cars on the road. However, the data also suggested that customers still often endure lengthy wait times even when fares were high.
In 2018, antitrust officials cautioned about the potential harmful effects of Grab’s acquisition of the Philippine operations of Uber, its only credible rival then. Six years later, Grab’s market dominance remains unchallenged.
Since buying out Uber, Grab has been penalized and fined a total of P86.7 million for violating its merger deal commitments, particularly on pricing.
Regulators are not fully aware of how Grab’s algorithm works. Without guardrails, these are prone to abuse, experts say.

Rica Torres, 37, used to take a Grab car almost every day to take her six-year-old son to and from school. The app-based service was more convenient than riding a jeepney, a tricycle, and crossing an overpass.

“I don’t want my son to go through all those because it saps his energy or sours his mood. He should be in high spirits and excited for school, but because of the commute, he might not look forward to studying anymore,” the mother of two said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Torres took taxis from time to time, but she often avoided them because of drivers known for gouging passengers with high fares. “Hangga’t maaari, Grab ‘yung kinukuha namin (Whenever possible, we always take Grab),” she said.

The Torreses’ experience is a common example of what it’s like to navigate Metro Manila. Notorious for its poor public transportation, the metropolitan region composed of 16 cities and a lone municipality had the world’s worst metro traffic in 2023.

A traffic index found that a motorist spent 240 hours driving on average last year, with almost half of that time stuck on the road. So, when ride-hailing firms like Uber and Grab entered the Philippines, they thrived. The service they offered simply made sense for commuters like the Torreses.

But the family’s travel routine wasn’t sustainable. While their home is only seven kilometers away from school, booking a GrabCar ride meant leaving very early to avoid rush hour. They also spent at least P600 a day on the app alone. That’s roughly the minimum daily wage in Metro Manila.

Torres said she used to pay Grab about P270 going to school and roughly P290 going home at the start of the school year. A few months later, she noticed the fares rising to P310 and to as high as P350. She couldn’t understand the increase when she and her son took the same route every day.

At one point, Torres got curious. She checked the receipt sent by the Grab app to her email, but she had no way to verify the amount.

“I didn’t have any basis or a reference to compare the fare, whether it could still go down or if there’s anything I could contest, so I just let it be. Besides, I didn’t really have another choice. I would take it (Grab) anyway,” she said.

For years, Grab’s seemingly steep fares driven by surge pricing have become a common commuter woe. Because no other firm has been able to threaten Grab’s dominance in the four-wheel transport network vehicle service (TNVS) market, customers are often left without other options. As of April 2024, there are 23,000 TNVS units, and majority of those are Grab’s.

Behind Grab’s multi-billion dollar business is its data and algorithm-based approach to matching drivers and customers. This is how it is supposed to work, according to Grab: “When demand outpaces supply, the higher fares help to signal for more driver-partners to turn on their apps and join the flow.”

The idea makes sense. After all, Grab offers a service that isn’t the same as those offered by taxis, for instance. But the lack of transparency on how its algorithm defines surge rates has left many customers like Torres baffled.

**CARMAGEDDON.** The commuting culture in the Philippines is so rich that Filipinos have developed jargon to describe the challenges of their daily travel. Photograph: Bernard Testa

An algorithm is a sequence of rules performed to carry out a certain task. It generates an output from a given input, similar to solving a mathematical problem or cooking a meal through a recipe. However, there is little people know about how these algorithms really work. This is why they are often called “black boxes.”

While the inputs and outputs of an algorithm are often known, the process that turns the input into output is unknown. In the case of Grab, the firm uses driver and customer data to derive the surge rate. But how it computes those rates is unclear.

To test and learn more about how this algorithm works, PCIJ collected Grab’s pricing information by attempting to book rides for 10 routes across Metro Manila nearly every hour from 6 a.m. to midnight for one week. PCIJ also obtained data from Grab’s Farefeed application programming interface (API) every 15 minutes every day for the same routes during the same period.

Our investigation revealed that GrabCar rides always included surge fees, and when fares were high, waiting times did not always become shorter. The data suggested that the algorithm behind surge pricing did not always work the way Grab had advertised it to work. Customers still often had long wait times even when surge rates applied.

Since its founding in 2012 by Harvard Business School graduates Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling, Singapore-based Grab has become a multinational company. Originally designed as a ride-hailing app, Grab has since expanded into a “super app” offering food delivery and mobile wallet services. In the Philippines, Grab’s local subsidiary is MyTaxi PH, a homage to the app’s original name, “MyTeksi.”

Pricing probe still pending

Lawyer Ariel Inton was not surprised by PCIJ’s findings. It reflected the same complaints that his organization, the Lawyers for Commuter Safety and Protection, has been receiving.

In 2022, the lawyers’ group raised questions about Grab’s surge fees along with other pricing concerns to the Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board (LTFRB), the government agency that regulates public transport utilities. They wanted to know how Grab’s surge rates were determined.

There is still no information about how the LTFRB will resolve the questions about surge pricing. PCIJ’s interview and records requests with the agency have not been granted as of posting time. LTFRB only acknowledged our letter.

Inton said his group filed a motion to resolve the matter in January. There has been no news since.

“Two Christmases passed by already and there’s still no decision… We want to know when the surge [charges] should be implemented. Our focus then was that Grab supposedly applied surge charges because of supply and demand. But is it true every minute of the day? What we’re telling the LTFRB was for them to define surge. There has to be a limitation,” Inton said.

Ronald Gustilo, spokesperson of advocacy group Digital Pinoys, said he didn’t think the LTFRB was able to check how the Grab algorithm worked because of the fact that a complaint about it had been filed.

“The fact that they are not addressing the complaint only shows that they don’t really know how or when surge pricing should be activated. Grab always says it depends on supply and demand, but in the first place, how do we know if there are indeed fewer drivers,” he said.

In a written reply to PCIJ, Grab’s Philippine operations said it had “fully cooperated with the LTFRB’s inquiry” by participating in the hearings. “We remain committed to working with the LTFRB and other regulatory bodies to ensure our pricing mechanisms are fair, transparent, and compliant with all regulations,” the response stated.

Grab said it “strictly follows the fare matrix” set by the LTFRB, which includes provisions for surge pricing. The company also claimed that fares were shown upfront on the app “to provide transparency and allow for informed choices.”

The infographic below shows the information provided by Grab upon booking and when the ride is completed. The cost given by the app can indeed be broken down using the government-approved fare matrix, but only up to a point.

Like other modes of public transportation, Grab’s fare is a combination of the base fare (P45) and increments based on distance (P15 per kilometer) and duration (P2 per minute). But unlike jeepneys, buses, and taxis, the company applies “surge pricing” that is supposed to be based on supply and demand. This part is opaque.

Grab had applied surge rates even before the guidelines for TNVS were drawn up, said Inton, who used to serve as board member of the LTFRB. When the LTFRB stepped in, surge pricing was retained in addition to the standard base fare and distance and duration rates. The LTFRB approved a surge that could only be up to twice the cost per kilometer and per minute.

Data: Grab rides always include surge fees

PCIJ’s data gathering yielded 1,328 data points from the Grab app and 6,720 through Grab’s fare check API. While our collection represented a small portion of the ride-hailing firm’s data, it offered useful insights into the inner workings of its algorithm.

Across all the rides we tried to book that week in February, data showed that surge charges were always included in the fares. Following Grab’s explanation, this suggested that booking requests always exceeded available cars nearly throughout the entire day – even early in the morning and late in the evening, even on weekdays and weekends. But it’s difficult to find out if demand did outpace supply because only Grab has access to this data.

According to data obtained from the app, the surge multiplier averaged at 1.51 times taking into account the rates for distance and duration of all the rides we had attempted to book. The rate tended to be in the lower range for a few hours in the morning.

The lowest surge multiplier we found was 1.19 times and the highest, 1.98 times, or almost twice the per-kilometer and per-minute cost. This is the maximum surge rate allowed by the LTFRB.

The surge charges customers paid for trips significantly differed depending on where they got picked up, the data showed. Passengers from Makati, Taguig, Las Piñas City, and Pasig paid higher surge rates on average. Meanwhile, lower multipliers were recorded in pick-up locations in Manila, Parañaque, Pasay, and Valenzuela.

For example, a six-kilometer ride from Makati to Taguig on Feb. 17, 2024 at 5 p.m. cost P381. Without a surge, the ride should cost about P215. The estimated surge rate was P166 or 1.98 times the distance and duration fees. The surge fees on this day ranged from 29% to 44% of the whole fare.

Roughly the same trip distance within Valenzuela on the same date and time incurred a P64 surge fee. This was 1.5 times of the per-kilometer and per-minute cost. Grab charged P239 on the app. The surge fees on this day ranged between 23% and 31% of the entire fare.

Verifying app fares with API data

As a way to verify, we compared the data collected manually from the Grab app with the data collected via Grab’s fare check API. The online tool as shown below provided estimates of the minimum and maximum fare and the duration of the trip.

**FARE CHECK.** A screenshot of Grab’s fare check page where PCIJ obtained API data. On June 20, 2024, PCIJ found out that the tool is no longer available online.

When compared, the app fares were consistently above the minimum fare approximated by Grab in its own fare check page. This supports the finding that the rides PCIJ tried to book on the app always incurred surge fees. Moreover, it tended to be on the high side.

The chart below shows that each booking (see black line) was also close to or more than the maximum fare estimated by Grab across the 10 routes.

API data: No surge?

Based on data collected from Grab’s fare check API, the company tagged each ride as “high surge,” “low surge,” or “none.” The same notices are not shown on the app, although it sometimes prompts customers to “beat high fares by booking later.”

Nearly two in three rides had a “None” surge notice in the API data, while the remaining rides were mostly “high surge” with a few “low surge”. This was inconsistent with what we found on the app where the surge fees were always added. Based on our data, there was always an extra amount charged on top of the P45 base fare, P15 per kilometer, and P2 per minute costs set by the LTFRB.

Curiously, the Makati-Taguig route in the API data registered a “high surge” throughout the week 24/7, every hour, even past midnight of the research period.

Grab did not directly address PCIJ’s question on why there was always a surge, but it did say that surge pricing was not predetermined by time but by real-time conditions.

“The discrepancy in surge notice(s) may result from variations in demand and supply at specific times and locations. The ‘High,’ ‘Low,’ or ‘None’ indicators are dynamic and can change rapidly as the system continuously processes new data to maintain balance and efficiency,” Grab said.

Grab added that its algorithm took into account a variety of factors, including traffic congestion, geographic location, the supply of drivers, and demand for rides.

“It operates dynamically to ensure that fare adjustments reflect the real-time market conditions. Surge is not manually set, but run by a real-time algorithm,” Grab wrote.

Gustilo, for his part, said that because algorithms are programmed by people, they need to be checked. Decisions driving their design will affect those who use the technology, he said.

Like Inton, Gustilo has been on the receiving end of complaints from both customers and drivers using the app. He himself found surge pricing puzzling as he had done his own fare monitoring. One time he checked the rate from his location to a destination hourly, from 5 a.m. until midnight. The data he collected showed that prices did not change much throughout the day, which led him to think that either no surge pricing was in effect or there was always a surge the whole day.

“My point is, is Grab always on surge all day? Which is the same question asked by many passengers. Kasi nga, sobrang mahal na mag-Grab ngayon e (Taking a Grab now is so expensive.) Grab’s justification with surge pricing is demand. But drivers tell me, ‘Matumal ‘yung biyahe.’ So how do you reconcile that?” he said.

Does surge pricing get more cars on the road?

According to Grab Philippines, surge pricing is “an industry-accepted, sophisticated and scientifically developed algorithm-based feature driven by real-time supply and demand dynamics.”

“It ensures optimal allocation of resources by incentivizing more driver-partners to meet high demand, thereby enhancing service reliability. This mechanism is similar to economic principles applied in various sectors to balance supply and demand effectively,” the firm added.

If the algorithm was working as Grab had advertised, wait times should stay the same or become shorter when surge pricing took effect. However, relatively high surge multipliers lasted several hours without reducing wait times, the API data showed. This was not helpful for commuters because to realize a significant drop in the fare, they would have to wait much longer.

For example, on Feb. 20, 2024 (a Tuesday) from midnight to 11:45 p.m., the Makati to Taguig City route recorded a notice of “High Surge” the whole day. The estimated average wait time was 3.4 minutes that day. It peaked at 11 minutes at 7:45 a.m., but didn’t go back to the average until 10 a.m. From 3:15 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. on the same day, the wait time averaged at four minutes. It wasn’t until past 10 p.m. when wait times generally dropped to a minute or two.

Statistical analyses conducted by PCIJ did not yield conclusive results. The routes exhibited both positive and negative correlation between surge rates and wait times, which suggested that surge pricing did not always work to improve service quality, measured roughly as a reduction in wait time.

The routes that resulted in a positive correlation were pick-up points in the central business districts like Makati and Taguig. The surge rate and wait times in these areas tended to go in the same direction. It could be inferred that customers in these cities ended up waiting for a long time even with surge pricing.

Meanwhile, some routes did result in a negative correlation, meaning higher fares could be associated with shorter wait times. However, they were not substantial, which could mean that surge pricing had a minimal effect.

Grab acknowledges PCIJ finding

Sought for an explanation, Grab confirmed that surge rates could become “prolonged.”

“In some cases, high demand periods may persist, leading to prolonged surge pricing. The aim is to attract more drivers to areas with high demand, thereby reducing wait times over time. Continuous adjustments are made to ensure optimal service delivery,” Grab wrote in its response.

The firm said surge pricing was designed to address supply-demand imbalances but was not a static solution. The duration and impact of surge pricing depended on factors such as driver availability, demand surges in specific locations, and traffic congestion, it said.

On May 28, 2024, about a week after PCIJ wrote to Grab, the ride-hailing company was reported as asking the government to increase the number of TNVS vehicles in Metro Manila back to the pre-pandemic level of 65,000 to keep up with growing demand.

“Grab is struggling to serve the ride-hailing demand in Metro Manila, lamenting that TNVS supply is short of the pre-pandemic high of 65,000. The TNVS supply is around 40,000 slots as of end-2023,” PhilStar.com reported.

Persistently long wait times could also mean that drivers were not encouraged by surge pricing. At least a dozen drivers interviewed by PCIJ said that they didn’t necessarily go to “surge” areas or the areas marked red on the app map because that would mean getting stuck in traffic.

They simply relied on the “bato” or the booking provided by the app, the drivers said. They spoke to PCIJ on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Unchecked algorithms

PCIJ reached out to four relevant government agencies to learn more about how algorithms are regulated. Of the four departments, only the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) responded.

PCIJ has sent several requests and made follow-ups to the LTFRB since November 2023. The letters were acknowledged but not addressed. We wanted to ask the transport regulator about the status of its surge pricing inquiry and other related regulatory concerns.

The Department of Trade and Industry’s Consumer Protection Group asked for and was given a list of interview questions but did not respond to our request.

Only the DICT agreed to an interview. Assistant Secretary Philip Varilla said the department did not have a regulatory framework for ride-hailing applications. Its focus is on information shared by customers, he said.

“Our attached agency, the National Privacy Commission, does some Privacy Impact Assessment. Basically, it is in relation to personally identifiable information. And with cybersecurity, we have our Cybersecurity Bureau, and they follow our Cybercrime Prevention Act, the National Cybersecurity Plan, as well as the Consumer Act of the Philippines to protect consumers. So, as for a regulatory framework specifically for ride-hailing applications, we don’t have one,” he said.

Making algorithms accountable

In the absence of regulations about algorithms, risks abound, according to experts.

Dominic Ligot, co-founder of social impact technology company CirroLytix, said that while the Data Privacy Act and the Cybercrime Law cover abuses using technology or abuses on data, they do not cover algorithmic bias or algorithmic abuse. New laws are needed to cover algorithmic liabilities, he said.

Apart from legislation, designing an Algorithmic Impact Assessment or AIA might be helpful, Ligot said. It’s similar to the Privacy Impact Assessment under the Data Privacy Act. PIAs are a checklist of data being gathered, how they are processed, and who’s going to be accountable when there’s a data breach, for example.

An AIA can be a checklist that includes risks posed by an algorithm, among others, Ligot said.

“Let’s spell it out. And then if we’re comfortable with the risk, sign, so that later if it blows up, ‘Okay, wait, who assessed this? And then we learn.’ At the bare minimum, we should have something like that for accountability and transparency,” he said.

This problem is not unique to Grab. Ride-hailing companies in other countries, like Uber, have been criticized for using surge or dynamic pricing to make a profit instead of managing supply and demand.

Researchers have warned against algorithmic abuse in cases where companies raise surge rates more frequently than required due to weak regulation or the lack thereof.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for instance has highlighted concerns about the widespread use of algorithms in digital markets exhibiting characteristics that may lead to anti-competitive behavior.

Grab’s market dominance remains unchallenged

Grab not having a competition adds another layer to the problem.

In 2018, the Philippine Competition Commission cautioned against Grab acquiring the Philippine operations of its lone and credible rival, Uber, stating that it would undermine competition. But the antitrust body later cleared the merger when Grab committed to address service quality and transparency concerns. Six years later, Grab’s market dominance remains unchallenged.

Indonesian ride-hailing startup Go-Jek, the only potential competition to Grab, tried several times to enter the Philippine market, but faced numerous roadblocks.

The LTFRB in August 2018 imposed a moratorium on new applications from ride-hailing platforms, saying it needed to review the effect of the cap on the pool of the 65,000 approved TNVS units.

Go-jek re-applied several times but was rejected because of the 40% foreign ownership limit for public transport services, according to Bloomberg.

The Philippine Constitution requires companies to be least 60% Filipino-owned to operate public-utility services. Go-jek has a local subsidiary, Velox South-East Asia Holdings, but only about 20% of it was reported to have been owned by a Filipino shareholder.

Go-jek’s car-hailing unit, Go-Car, helped push Uber out of Southeast Asia and outgrew Grab as the most popular ride-hailing service in Indonesia, the Financial Times had reported.

**GRABCAR, UNRIVALLED.** Indonesian ride-hailing startup Go-Jek, the only potential competition to Grab, tried several times to enter the Philippine market, but faced numerous roadblocks. The absence of credible rivals and the inefficiency of the country’s public transport systems have paved the way for Grab to dominate the TNVS market. Photograph: Karol Ilagan

Former LTFRB board member Inton said the exit of Uber ultimately favored Grab.

“Why? Because it’s only Grab. There’s nothing else. But that situation should be regulated. Otherwise, Grab will be over and above regulation already. And Grab is so big now. The perception is that it is untouchable already, which should not be the case,” he said.

Inton urged the LTFRB to start scrutinizing surge pricing.

Grab violates commitments

Since the 2018 merger, the PCC has been looking into Grab’s operations and issuing penalties on the company because of its failure to comply with its commitments, particularly with pricing issues.

The PCC explained in a written response to PCIJ’s queries that in principle, Grab must keep fares within a range as if a competitor like Uber were present in the market.

Asked how it monitors Grab’s compliance with its merger deal commitments, the PCC said it tracked Grab’s compliance through third-party monitors using reports generated by Grab. Grab submitted quarterly reports to the PCC.

The PCC, in turn, furnished the monitor with copies of these reports. The monitor then informed the PCC of its assessment, including any findings of non-compliance. (The PCC declined PCIJ’s request for a copy of the quarterly monitoring reports because these are supposed to be “confidential.”)

The PCC said it had penalized and fined Grab for violations of its commitments in multiple instances. Fines have totaled P86.7 million over the years since the merger. The amount includes a P16 million fine in October 2018 for violating key provisions of the Interim Measures Order (IMO) during the merger review period and a P9 million fine in February 2023 for providing incorrect and misleading information in compliance reports and failure to comply with PCC orders.

The PCC has also ordered Grab to refund a total of P25 million to its riders for violating price monitoring commitments. Of this amount, P4.7 million will be remitted to the National Treasury because it was not claimed by eligible Grab riders.

According to Grab, all fines have been paid in full and on time, but the PCC clarified that Grab had yet to settle a P16 million fine, which is the subject of a petition for review before the Court of Appeals.

However, the PCC pointed out that Grab’s commitments to service quality and fare transparency have expired and were no longer being monitored by the PCC. The only remaining commitments under monitoring, it said, were about non-exclusivity and incentives. These pertain to drivers who are not supposed to be tied to just one ride-hailing company.

**GRAB MAKES A MOVE.** In 2022, Grab Philippines bought motorcycle taxi firm Move It to compete with other players like Angkas and Joyride. [Photograph: Bernard Testa]

Grab buys Move It

Digital and transport advocates also claim that Grab has monopolized the four-wheel transport service and that the company will soon monopolize the transportation sector. This is in context of Grab’s acquisition of motorcycle taxi firm Move It.

Grab Philippines has a different perspective, pointing to a “competitive” market of 18 Transport Network Companies (TNCs) accredited by the LTFRB. As regards its acquisition of Move It, Grab stressed that the PCC, the competition watchdog, had cleared the transaction.

“Digital ride-hailing services, both four-wheeled and two-wheeled, are just one segment of the entire transportation landscape. The sector remains competitive, with numerous players and options available to the public. Grab’s acquisition of Move It does not alter the conditions that have contributed to the competitiveness and dynamism of the transportation sector,” Grab claimed.

While it’s true that there are several other players in the Philippines, none have the financial and technical resources to threaten Grab’s market dominance.

Apart from legislation and setting up AIAs, the government needs to foster innovation, especially now when there isn’t much incentive to build competing apps, Ligot said. If there are no incentives, the Philippines will be beholden to foreign companies, he said.

“Grab had this first-mover advantage. Or rather second. Uber came first. And you can see how it really shredded the taxi industry. Partly because of the taxi industry also. It’s an ugly experience, right? They rig the meter. It’s inefficient. Suddenly, an algorithm comes and makes it efficient. But now we’re hostage to the algorithm,” he added.

That’s a hard pill to swallow for many commuters, drivers, and riders to whom ride-hailing apps have become a lifeline.

Torres’ family eventually decided to move to a place near the son’s school. She no longer takes GrabCar every day.

But she still takes it whenever she’s with her kids or family. “I would rather that I take Grab. (One main reason) is the traceability, in the event something happens,” said.

She’s hoping for alternatives.

“Hopefully, once my kids are a bit older, maybe they can take a cab instead. But for now, that’s not the case yet,” the mother said. –PCIJ, July 2024

= = = = = =

This story was produced by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.

The story was reported by Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network fellow Karol Ilagan and data specialist Federico Acosta Rainis.

Jabes Florian Lazaro contributed reporting and research for the article.

Data collection was done by Angelica Alcantara, Jay-ar Alombro, Donna Clarisse Blacer, Lyjah Tiffany Bonzo, James Kenneth Calzado, Gina de Castro, Maverick de Castro, Dominique Flores, Lois Garcia, Guinevere Latoza, Aya Mance, Faith Maniquis, Karmela Melgarejo, Gabriel Muñoz, Arone Jervin Ocampo, Matthew Raralio, Arriana Santos, and Angelica Ty.

Felipe Salvosa II was the lead editor.

Photographs were taken by Bernard Testa. Illustrations were created by Joseph Luigi Almuena.

Data visualizations were designed by Karol Ilagan, Federico Acosta Rainis, and Kuang Keng Kuek Ser.

NGCP told to ‘practice discipline’ to protect consumers

February 15, 2024/in News /by Kodao Productions

Energy industry regulators are urging utilities, especially monopolies like the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, to charge only reasonable expenses to consumer electric bills.

BY ELYSSA LOPEZ / Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Second of two parts

Part 1: Philippine power transmission monopoly NGCP questions rate review amid calls for refund

In its preliminary review, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) disallowed expenses of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) totalling P3.7 billion, which it said were “improperly documented or not recoverable for customers.”

The biggest items disallowed were for public relations, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and advertising-related expenses.

NGCP’s advertising expenses, for example, reached P130 billion from 2016 to 2020.

The NGCP argued that its advertising expenses were “not for marketing purposes” but for “information dissemination.” The ERC however demanded proof of the need to spend such an amount on ads.

“There is a test of reasonableness [in assessing these expense items]. If these were spent on full-page ads saying: “Bawal humawak ng livewire,” [we must ask]: reasonable ba ‘yung full-page ad saying that?” ERC Chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said in a news conference in November where she announced the results of the commission’s preliminary review.

In a separate news conference in November, NGCP Assistant Vice President Cynthia Alabanza said it was “unfair” for the regulator to “retroactively” apply new rules.

“Before you join a game, you need to know the rules. And to retroactively apply rules while you’re in a game, that’s unfair,” Alabanza said in Filipino.

“I’m wondering why they released it when it is still raw. It’s like if we had 100 steps to take to the finish line, we’re still in step two,” she said in Filipino in a press conference held right after ERC’s media conference.

Dimalanta said it was necessary to release the initial findings.

“I think we owe it to the public to let them know what is happening [in the review] and to provide guidance on what is allowed and disallowed [in the expenses of the NGCP],” she said in the press conference in November.

Alfredo Non, who served as ERC commissioner from 2012 to 2018, said there should have been “clearer guidelines” on what spending items were “acceptable.”

“As far as I am concerned, the ERC has not released guidelines on how regulated entities may spend on CSR, or salaries,” he said.

The former commissioner, however, did acknowledge that, during his time, the ERC had disallowed salary increases for a government-controlled corporation.

“When the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation asked before for higher market fees because that’s how they cover their budget, for salary increases, we disallowed it. Because they refused to show documents of their payroll,” he said.

“So if NGCP shows documents, then they should be allowed,” he added.

NGCP’s reply to the ERC findings, which has not been made public as of this writing, is expected to have addressed these issues.

ERC said the disallowances were intended to protect consumers.

“It’s not that the commission is prohibiting them (regulated entities), for example, from increasing the salaries of their employees, or giving donations, or engaging in CSR [activities],” Dimalanta said in the ERC’s November news conference.

“What we’re saying is, you can’t recover that from the rates [you impose on consumers]. You recover that from your profits,” she said.

The ERC had previously ruled, in cases involving power distribution utilities, that CSR expenses should not be charged to consumers.

In its 78-page order, the ERC also highlighted that the NGCP, as a public utility, is mandated to incur only “necessary and efficient costs,” with expenses kept “at a minimum.”

Adoracion Navarro, senior research fellow at the state think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said ERC’s moves are intended to send a clear message to NGCP and other entities regulated to practice discipline.

“If before, they (the NGCP) got away with spending on these (disallowed expenses), then the regulator is now setting more discipline,” Navarro told PCIJ. She is a former deputy director general at the National Economic and Development Authority.

“The regulator is now just enforcing that we have to stick with the principles or the rules,” Navarro said.

ERC is making sure that NGCP is “not shortchanging the industry and the Filipino people,” according to a former energy official who asked not to be named.

The official said the entire rate-setting process is supposed to determine which expenses are considered prudent, and it’s up to the NGCP to justify its revenue requirements.

“Because how the commission works is… it is wary. It just wants to make sure that NGCP is functioning at its optimum efficiency, and that it is not shortchanging the industry and the Filipino people,” the official said.

“The concession agreement is a privilege, and that comes with attendant responsibilities,” the official added.

Will there be refunds?

The ERC is expected to release its final determination of the rates in the first quarter of 2024.

Will there be cash refunds? The ERC said it is possible but it’s not guaranteed.

“What we’re seeing are just telltale signs, because they are claiming this much, and we are deciding that they can only recover this much, then there could be a downward adjustment [on their allowable revenue], or a refund,” Dimalanta said in November.

Instead of cash refunds, the ERC is inclined to implement a “reduction of transmission rates,” according to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian at a Senate hearing to discuss ERC’s budget. He defended the budget of ERC during last year’s budget deliberations.

“In terms of modality, it’s easier to reduce the rates, and easier for the regulator to monitor and apply, and to supervise [that kind of] implementation,” he said during the hearing last Nov. 13, 2023.

How much that reduction would translate into consumers’ electricity bills has yet to be determined, he said. But he assured the public that it would be “significant.”

Non said it was the release of the partial results that “created a wrong impression that there would be refunds.”

The release of ERC’s final review of NGCP’s fourth regulatory period was initially expected as early as August 2023. Instead, a preliminary review was released in November 2023, around the time that Congress was deliberating the national budget.

“It’s budget season. They (ERC) had to show to Congress and the Senate that they were doing their jobs,” the energy official who spoke with PCIJ said.

The Senate approved an P888-million budget for the ERC, higher than the P611 million originally proposed by the Department of Budget and Management.

NGCP in hot water

NGCP faced scrutiny amid heavy criticisms against its performance as the country’s grid operator.

NGCP officials have been called to many House and Senate hearings since parts of Luzon were subject to rotational brownouts in the Summer of 2021. It does not help that the Luzon grid suffers from yellow and red alerts every year, once the hot season comes, too.

NGCP is responsible for building more transmission lines, but many of its projects are delayed. Power producers have previously lamented delays in their connections to the grid.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself gave NGCP a reprimand during his second State of the Nation Address in July 2023 over these delays.

“We are conducting a performance review of our private concessionaire, the NGCP. We look to NGCP to complete all of its deliverables, starting with the vital Mindanao-Visayas and the Cebu-Negros-Panay interconnections,” Marcos said in his 2023 SONA speech.

In January 2024, Marcos again took a swipe at the NGCP for failing to prevent a massive power outage in Panay Island, which caused its residents to suffer from total blackout for three days.

“This incident emphasized the vital role of these interconnection projects. We cannot afford to have another round of this costly interruption, not only in Panay Island but anywhere in the country,” Marcos said in an NGCP event announcing the completion of the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection.

Marcos pushed for the completion of remaining critical interconnection lines, including the Cebu-Negros-Panay backbone project during the event.

“So, we look forward to your assurances in the promised completion of the 230 kV Cebu-Negros-Panay backbone project by March of this year,” he said.

The ownership structure of NGCP has also been a subject of security concern because it is 40% owned by the State Grid Corporation of China. Lawmakers have expressed fears that Beijing could use the NGCP for sabotage in case of a conflict over the disputed waters of the West Philippine Sea.

NGCP said this is not a concern because “only Filipinos are manning the (NGCP) substations.”

On the other hand, there are concerns that cutting NGCP’s profits could affect its ability to expand the country’s transmission lines.

The NGCP needs the financial muscle to develop the country’s transmission grid and prevent massive blackouts. The NGCP also needs to modernize the grid to support renewable energy suppliers, according to experts.

In a 2023 report, the Climate Analytics think tank estimated that the country would need transmission lines to accommodate 163 gigawatts (GW) of energy, taking into account the variable nature of proposed and committed renewable energy projects.

NGCP’s Ablanza said as much. She said transmission planning would be critical to the green energy push.

“So if they (the ERC) limit our ability to recover our bonafide expenses, then it would have an impact,” she said.

Non warned of the consequences if ERC’s preliminary review is upheld. He said the NGCP’s investors could be “forced to pull out” if the effects of the review put a dent in the company’s financial ability to operate.

“If I were NGCP, I would fight it out [in court], because the basis for you to continue is a going concern. And if the effect of the review is too significant, then I may pull out [of the concession agreement,” he said.

Whatever the outcome, ERC’s final review of NGCP’s rates will inevitably have consequences on the energy industry. It will also translate to real costs that Filipino consumers will bear. END

Philippine power transmission monopoly NGCP questions rate review amid calls for refund

February 14, 2024/in News /by Kodao Productions

Delays in the rate review process mean the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines will continue to charge transmission rates that critics have described as ‘excessive.’

BY ELYSSA LOPEZ / Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

First of two parts

The Supreme Court petition filed by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) to halt a long-delayed review of its rates could keep power costs high and delay potential refunds to consumers.

NGCP is a private monopoly that operates the country’s power transmission lines — the grid — linking power generators to distribution utilities such as Meralco and electric cooperatives nationwide. Costs incurred by the NGCP are passed on to consumers as part of their electric bills, accounting for about 10% of the total bill based on estimates.

The NGCP suffered a setback in November last year when the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), in a preliminary review of its rates from 2016 to 2022, the fourth regulatory period (RP), cut its allowable expenditures by half.

The amount included disallowances worth P3.7 billion, which were spent for public relations and advertising costs, among others, that ERC said should not be charged to consumers.

Senators have been among the most vocal in calling for the ERC to order refunds to consumers.

But the NGCP questioned before the Supreme Court new rules adopted by the ERC when it reviewed the rates of the transmission operator. It sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the ERC proceedings.

NGCP lawyer Jerome Versoza announced this move in December 2023, as the ERC began proceedings for the fifth RP covering the years 2023 to 2027.

A TRO, if granted, would restrain “the honorable commission from continuing further proceedings with concern to the fourth RP application and the fifth RP application,” the NGCP lawyer said.

The fourth RP, covering the years 2016 to 2022, is the subject of the November preliminary review, whose final determination is expected in the first quarter of 2024. The fifth RP covers the current period, from 2023 to 2027.

‘There is still no TRO’

Pete Ilagan, a consumer affairs advocate and former energy official, warned that a Supreme Court intervention would “delay the reset process, definitely.”

“But the bigger issue is the application for the fourth regulatory process is still pending, and it’s already past the period,” he said. “[It is] a clear case of regulatory failure.”

During the December 2023 hearing, ERC presiding officer, Maria Corazon Gines, took note of Versoza’s manifestation, but proceeded with the pre-trial for the fifth review as the Supreme Court had yet to act on the NGCP’s plea.

“As there is still no TRO or preliminary injunction, then we will continue with the proceedings,” she said.

NGCP’s counsels stayed in the room but did not comment during the two-hour proceedings.

The details of the NGCP petition remain under wraps. News organizations including the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) have repeatedly sought a copy from NGCP, but were denied.

The PCIJ has also requested a copy from the ERC, but was refused. The regulator argued that the PCIJ was “not a party to the said case.”

“The ERC is enjoined to observe the sub judice rule (which restricts comments and disclosures pertaining to judicial proceedings), consequently, [we are] constrained to deny your FOI (freedom of information) request,” it wrote in a letter to the PCIJ.

NGCP has publicly questioned ERC’s preliminary review of its rates because the ERC — hobbled by internal issues and later on, the Covid-19 pandemic — changed the rules governing the review process.

READ: NGCP’s rate reset: A timeline

The ERC review, called the “rate reset,” is normally forward-looking and akin to a budget process. The ERC approves NGCP’s annual revenue requirement or ARR from which it can charge its expenditures.

The original timeframe of the fourth regulatory period covered five years – from 2016 to 2020. The rate reset should have been done in 2015. However, a series of leadership changes in the ERC delayed the process.

ERC only started the review process in December 2022. ERC decided to look at NGCP’s actual expenses and added two more years to the fourth review period – 2016-2022 from the original 2016-2020 – to clear the backlog in time for the fifth review covering 2023 to 2027.

READ: What is the rate reset process?

Critics have found NGCP’s transmission rates, set in 2009, to be “excessive.”

The ERC’s preliminary review of NGCP’s rates from 2016 to 2022 cut NGCP’s revenue requirement, essentially, the transmission operator’s allowable expenses, to more than half.

In its application, NGCP sought a revenue requirement worth P387.80 billion for 2016 to 2020, which meant an annual average of P129 billion. But the ERC, based on its initial review, found that allowable revenue should only be at P183 billion for the period, or about P36.67 billion a year.

The NGCP, from 2016 to 2020, operated on an interim maximum annual revenue (iMAR), approved by the ERC under a different leadership.

This iMAR, said NGCP Assistant Vice President Cynthia Alabanza, was only an estimate but was approved by the ERC as there was no regulatory review at that time.

“Just like when Congress hasn’t approved a government budget, the government would spend based on what was previously allowed. So that’s what we were doing… we were spending based on what was allowed [in the third regulatory period],” Alabanza said in Filipino in a news conference in November 2023.

But the iMAR could be subject to review and may be revised, based on ERC rules.

Majority of the ERC’s cuts in the preliminary review came from three major items:

• net efficiency adjustment

• revenue under-recoveries

• net performance incentive

These three items were worth P104 billion during the five-year review period.

The net efficiency adjustment is the incentive given to the NGCP for achieving “cost reductions in controllable costs,” while revenue under-recoveries are expense items not recovered during the previous regulatory period.

ERC said a decision on both items would be made in the final determination of the review due this quarter.

It is not, however, keen on granting a net performance incentive to the transmission operator.

This incentive is based on a performance incentive scheme (PIS), a set of service and operational performance criteria, which is supposedly set before the beginning of every regulatory period.

If the NGCP meets these criteria, it is rewarded with an incentive. Otherwise, penalties may be imposed.

In its application for the fourth rate reset, the NGCP adopted the PIS set during the third regulatory period. But the ERC said it was “constrained from upholding this position.”

“Considering that the PIS and its factors have not been established prior to the commencement of the fourth regulatory period, it follows that NGCP does not have the basis to enforce the incentives. Conversely, there appears to be no grounds for the imposition of penalties,” the November ERC order read.

Former ERC commissioner Alfredo Non said the ERC position was debatable because the NGCP should be recognized for meeting the criteria for incentives in the previous regulatory period.

“It is not NGCP’s fault that ERC failed to provide parameters for the fourth regulatory period,” said Non, who was ERC commissioner from 2012 to 2018.

ERC said the disallowances were intended to protect consumers. (CONTINUED)

Hong Kong cases expose shortcomings of gov’t interventions to protect OFWs from debt burden

July 28, 2023/in News /by Kodao Productions

Harassment against Hong Kong migrant workers imperils their employment opportunities and prompts them to incur more debt. Governments are aware of the problem, but advocacy groups say regulations and enforcement are not enough.

BY CHERRY SALAZAR / Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

(Last part of the series)

Many Filipinos working in Hong Kong are hounded by their lenders from the Philippines, who even hire debt collectors to threaten and harass their employers.

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) found that Hong Kong employers have received threatening calls and visits from the debt collectors demanding payment for the Filipinos’ mounting debts.

In extreme cases, the employers would receive snakes or photos of their pets with eyes crossed out in their mailboxes or find their door with red paint.

“Marami pong kasong ganyan (There are many such cases),” Dolores Balladares-Pelaez, chair of the United Filipinos in Hong Kong, an alliance of Filipino migrant groups, told PCIJ. “Of course, the employers get angry and are stressed out.’’

Some Hong Kong employers have since required applicants to have no standing debt. For good measure, some confiscated the worker’s passport and contract on arrival that otherwise could be used as loan collateral, an act that is prohibited by Philippine and Hong Kong laws.

In the Philippines, applicants take out loans at interest rates higher than eight percent per annum — from lenders specifically referred by recruiters — to pay for a raft of excessive fees, including placement fees that are lumped with training and medical examination fees.

As their debts pile up, they’re forced to take out new loans to pay for old ones in an endless cycle of indebtedness.

“The worker’s pay is small. A month’s worth of salary isn’t enough to pay off a loan,” Pelaez said, noting that a migrant worker had to divide the monthly pay between loan payments, family expenses back home, and personal expenses. “So it’s not really enough.’’

In China’s special administrative region, migrant domestic workers are paid a minimum monthly salary of HK$4,730 or P33,000.

The problems are clear, but the solutions are not.

1. OFWs need more guidance during the recruitment process so they do not fall victim to unscrupulous recruiters.

2. Not all violators are punished, promoting a culture of impunity among recruitment agencies and third-party services.

3. Some lenders impose high interest rates.

4. Some lenders shirk responsibility when the debts are sold to partners that harass OFWs to collect payment.

Hong Kong reports 11 convictions

The Hong Kong government, which has allowed foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) to work in the region since the 1970s to meet the shortage of live-in helpers, acknowledged the risk of debt bondage among migrant workers, but has no data on this.

In the past five years, it has prosecuted and convicted 11 employment agencies for overcharging commissions pegged at 10 percent of a worker’s monthly wage. It has also ensured that employers shoulder the workers’ medical examination and visa fees, among others.

But the authorities there said governments should do their part, too, to address the issue of excessive placement or training fees.

In a joint response to PCIJ, the Hong Kong Labour Department, Immigration Department, and Police said the problem lies with “the indebtedness of the FDHs in their home countries before coming to Hong Kong.’’

The Hong Kong government could not tackle this alone, they added.

“We have repeatedly appealed to the governments of FDH-sending countries to address the problem of excessive placement or training fees charged by intermediaries in the FDHs’ home countries so as to tackle the problem of debt bondage at source,” they said.

Migrante International pointed to the Department of Migrant Workers’ mandate and responsibility “to coordinate with the other government agencies that can also put a stop to these cases.”

“But still walang (there’s no) strong enforcement and regulation on these lending agencies and further investigation,” said Joanna Concepcion, chair of Migrante International, a global network of Filipino migrant organizations.

DMW Undersecretary Bernard Olalia admitted that there were regulatory “gaps” concerning agencies that collect illegal fees. He said even some compliant agencies bend the rules “just to find a way to charge the OFW” even if the law clearly prohibits it.

Olalia, however, said the department wasn’t treating these agencies with kid gloves.

Erring agencies with valid licenses are charged with administrative cases and violations of recruitment laws. Other agencies with expired or invalid licenses face criminal cases, he said.

From 2018 to 2022, a total of 35 recruiters operating without a license were convicted and 5,099 agencies were charged with recruitment violations, according to DMW data.

High interest rates

High interest rates in Hong Kong could also be a factor in migrant workers’ debt bondage.

Based on Migrasia’s research, a third of surveyed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) took on debt that “was larger than their annual household income in order to finance costs associated with migrating overseas.”

“And then you’re talking about interest rates that in Hong Kong often exceed 100 percent. We’ve seen them over 300 percent, which means that if you made the minimum payment you would never get out from underneath that debt. So what do you do? You go borrow more money, right? And then you have a debt cycle that you can’t get out of,” it said.

Lending agencies based in the Philippines have also grown wiser. Instead of running after their Filipino clients, they outsource debt collectors to do the job for them. In cases of “bad debts,” they sell loans to their counterparts in Hong Kong.

Advocacy groups said this was one way to collect excessive fees.

Nolivienne Ermitaño, assistant director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Financing and Lending Companies Division, said Philippine lenders and their third-party service providers “should be jointly liable, solidarily liable for that.”

“That won’t work. You (lender) are still part of it because you were the one who talked to the borrower in the first place. You can’t say you’re not responsible for that anymore,’’ he said.

On average, OFWs would take more than nine months and spend a fifth of their monthly salary for debt repayment. But some reported a repayment period of as long as three years, a year longer than the contract of household service workers, according to Migrasia data.

OFWs need more guidance

Officials said migrant workers need to do their due diligence before processing pre-employment papers and verify the legitimacy of licenses of recruiters and lenders with the regulatory authorities.

The DMW website lists licensed recruitment agencies for both land-based and sea-based overseas jobs. The list includes agencies that were closed or permanently banned, and agencies with canceled or suspended licenses.

The SEC website also lists lending companies and financing companies that were issued Certificates of Authority.

Ermitaño acknowledged that OFWs’ circumstances may “induce (them) to suspend their financial prudential thinking.”

But he said that migrant workers have to be “discerning” and “skeptical” to preempt predatory practices and debt bondage.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), now absorbed by DMW, had identified fees to be shouldered by household service workers and by employers. This should serve as a guide to Filipino applicants.

Olalia stressed that expenses that may be charged to the employer are neither reimbursable nor deductible from a worker’s pay.

Not all violators are punished

Advocacy groups identified several mechanisms for migrant workers to seek redress for their grievances.

They noted that DMW offers legal assistance and conciliation services; SEC accepts complaints on unfair lending practices; the Department of Labor and Employment processes money claims, and courts hear illegal recruitment complaints.

Workers living in far-flung areas can request assistance from the Public Employment Service Office, a multi-employment service facility maintained by local governments, community-based organizations, and state universities and colleges.

But here lies the problem: Not all migrant workers are aware of their options.

“They are not informed, they are not aware, and if you’re not aware of your rights, you cannot invoke your rights,” DMW’s Olalia told PCIJ.

The undersecretary said the OFW could file a complaint; otherwise, the department could launch an investigation on its own.

DMW can provide legal aid to the worker, from the preparation of his affidavit to the prosecution of the case. Otherwise, it can investigate his complaint on its own, requiring the worker to serve only as a witness, Olalia said.

But based on the SEC’s experience, many workers do not push through with their complaint once the issue comes out in the media and the harassment from the lenders or recruiters stops.

“Mabilis ba? (Is the action fast?) What will it take from my (OFW’s) end? Gaano ba katagal ‘yan? (How long will it take?)” said Ellene Sana, executive director of Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), a Quezon City-based non-profit organization promoting the welfare of OFWs and their families.

She pointed out that the bureaucratic process would also require time, energy, and money from complainants. Besides, she added, there’s a host of issues that “will make the worker think twice or thrice whether to pursue [a case] or not.”

Sana also agreed that many workers were aware of recruitment violations but sometimes went along with these out of “desperation to get the job.” END

= = = = =

Illustration by Luigi Almuena

This story was produced as part of the Trafficking Inc. investigation by journalists from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Washington Post, NBC, WGBH Boston, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

This new PCIJ series follows a two-part report on the fight of Filipino migrant workers for equal pay abroad.

A Call to the Philippine Army: Respect for Press Freedom in Word and Deed

September 27, 2021/in Statements/Releases /by Kodao Productions

STATEMENT: September 27, 2021

The Freedom for Media Freedom for All (FMFA) a coalition of press freedom advocates, condemns the Philippine Army’s Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) cyberattacks on the websites of two alternative media organizations, Bulatlat and AlterMidya, as assaults on press freedom and free expression.

We call on the press and the media community as well as free expression groups to join their voices in the collective resistance of these violations of Constitutionally-protected rights.

Philippine Army spokespersons have denied responsibility for the attacks. But the government’s own Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), through its Computer Emergency Response Team has traced these actions to the Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to the PA.

DDOS attacks overwhelm websites with fake traffic and makes them inaccessible. It is no more than a form of censorship repugnant to any society that claims to be a democracy.

Information has always been crucial to the exercise of a people’s sovereign will that is the core of a democracy. A free press must provide a diversity of views so that society can engage in the decision-making process, debate and argumentation that is crucial to good governance.

It is specially vital today when, besieged by a pandemic and in preparation of national elections in 2022, Filipinos must be able to decide who will lead them for the next six years after the end of this administration. The Filipino people are called to make one of the most important decisions in the country’s political history.

The Philippine Army is sworn to defend the country and protect the people. Its service does not operate in the political sphere. In contrast, the press in providing news is necessarily engaged in political affairs. The Army’s interference in the conduct of news organizations over reaches the military mandate. Even as it claims to respect press freedom, these recent actions have directly attacked the press, an institution protected by nothing less than the Constitution.

Since the military by its function is not a repository of democratic values, we call on our soldiers to cease forthwith this insidious campaign to silence media and its members; to limit citizen access to views and perspectives that may differ from those held by the government in power.

The Philippine Army should demonstrate the respect for press freedom in deeds as well as in words.

Signed,

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP)

Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR)

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)

Mindanews

Philippine Press Institute (PPI)

Potential bets start advertising on Facebook as 2022 campaign shifts to social media

May 25, 2021/in News /by Kodao Productions

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, and many local politicians are top ad spenders on Facebook a year before the polls. The Commission on Elections is drafting rules to govern online campaigning.

BY CHERRY SALAZAR/Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Potential candidates have started advertising on Facebook more than a year before the May 2022 elections, spending several thousand to a few million pesos since August 2020, data from the social media platform showed.

A significant shift to online campaigning is expected during the 2022 elections, especially with mobility restrictions imposed during the pandemic, although in-person activities will remain a staple of the campaign, according to Eric Alvia, secretary general of poll watchdog National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).

“Less people now read newspapers, and with the shutdown of ABS-CBN, there are less media outlets covering the news. People are gravitating towards social media,” Alvia told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has spent P4.5 million boosting more than 600 Facebook posts over the past eight months, while former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and his supporters spent more than P1 million to promote a total of 45 posts.

They are the two biggest ad spenders so far on the social media platform among potential national candidates. It’s an average of P562,250 in ad spending a month for Gatchalian and about P130,000 a month for Trillanes.

Gatchalian’s Facebook ads were mostly about his stand on issues, particularly on the education and energy sectors. These were pushed through Gatchalian’s official Facebook page “Sen. Win Gatchalian,” which has more than two million likes and followers, as of this writing.

Trillanes advertised his page and his posts accusing President Duterte of corruption. One of the pages supporting the senator — “We support Trillanes 2022” — also showed bills he authored and sponsored. In some posts, both pages used the same graphics.

Other potential candidates have also started advertising on television and radio. Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano ran an ad that called for the passage of House Bill No. 8597, which seeks to provide each family with P10,000 in cash assistance.

Several ground activities have also been arranged nationwide, including gatherings in support of the presidential candidacy of the survey frontrunner, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, the president’s daughter. On Facebook, a few supporters paid for ads to promote her, too.

All these advertisements outside the official campaign period, which begins three months before the polls for national candidates, are not considered premature campaigning. They are not covered by election rules limiting campaign spending based on a 2009 Supreme Court ruling on a petition that sought to ban these early advertisements.

Many local pols

Other early advertisers on Facebook among potential national candidates included Antique Rep. and former senator Loren Legarda, who spent over P400,000; and Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, who spent more than P200,000 although his second term in the Senate will not end until 2025.

Supporters of Sen. Imee Marcos, Public Works Secretary Mark Villar, and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles also paid for ads to promote themselves. Marcos’s term also ends in 2025.

Among members of the House of Representatives, Camarines Sur Rep. LRay Villafuerte, Jr. spent nearly P1 million and Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza spent over P700,000.

The Digital 2021: Global Overview report showed that Filipinos spent more time than any country in the world on the internet, particularly on social media. The report was conducted by creative agency We Are Social and social media management platform Hootsuite.

The report also showed that Filipino netizens used social media more than four hours on average daily or nearly double the global daily average of two hours and 25 minutes.

More candidates will be relying on social media for advertising, said Rona Caritos, executive director of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente). She noted how online campaigning, which was previously only used by national candidates during the 2016 polls, has been tapped by local candidates beginning the 2019 midterm polls.

“[Political advertising] will no longer be concentrated at the national level, especially as most Filipinos are scrolling down their Facebook feeds and are on their phone screens because of the pandemic,” she said.

Indeed, many local politicians have paid for Facebook ads. Camarines Sur Gov. Migz Villafuerte spent nearly P1 million while Gatchalian’s brother, Mayor Rex Gatchalian of Valenzuela City, and Cebu Rep. Pablo John “PJ” Garcia both spent less than P200,000.

Facebook Ad Library

These are data available to the public through Facebook’s Ad Library, a searchable database of ads across Facebook and Instagram, showing the posts that were boosted on the social media platforms and who paid for them.

There are 4,000 ads in the Facebook database so far, although product placements such as those by Chowking PH, the World Food Programme, and Spotify were included in the database.

Clare Amador, Head of Public Policy of Facebook Philippines, said the tool is intended to make advertisers accountable. (READ: Q&A: ‘Facebook tool to mitigate foreign interference, make 2022 polls transparent)

It is also intended to mitigate foreign interference in elections. “We’ve been involved in more than 200 elections around the world since 2017. We know that every election is different, so we take this experience and work closely with local experts to learn what’s most useful to mitigate risks and prevent interference,” Amador told PCIJ.

Facebook uses artificial intelligence to review all ads before they are shown on Facebook and Instagram.

“In certain cases, if an ad is already running and it’s about elections or politics, it can be flagged by automated systems or reported by our community. These ads will be reviewed again and if found to be violating our policy by missing a disclaimer, we will also take it down and require they complete authorizations to continue running it,” Amador said.

James Jimenez, Commission on Elections spokesperson and director for education and information, said he welcomed the activation of the monitoring tool in the Philippines.

“It’s very important,” he told PCIJ. It will be useful in monitoring election advertising online and make sure candidates will follow spending limits, he said.

“It’s inescapable that Facebook will be a major factor [during the campaign], but hopefully it’s not the only social media platform that people will use,” said Jimenez.

Amador said Facebook will work with Comelec to “find ways to support them in their efforts to hold political advertisers more accountable.”

Comelec Resolution No. 10488, detailing rules and regulations implementing the Fair Elections Act, provides rules to govern online campaign spending.

Candidates are mandated to register their web sites and social media pages, including those that endorse the candidates, and report how much they have spent on advertising. However, monitoring was impossible in previous elections and candidates did not report it, said Lente’s Caritos.

Jimenez said Comelec would release more guidelines for online campaigning before the start of the official campaign period in February 2022.

While the Facebook Ad Library shows how much the candidates spend on the social media platform, it is not clear yet how Comelec will treat the ads paid for by their supporters.

“That’s the challenge. What happens if you are a supporter and you boost your blog post that’s promoting someone’s candidacy? We’re still making the rules for that,” Jimenez said.

Monitoring YouTube, too

Beyond monitoring the candidates’ spending, Jimenez, Alvia, and Caritos expressed concerns about misinformation and disinformation spreading online during the campaign.

Other than Facebook, Caritos sees the need to also monitor YouTube as she expects candidates turning to the “largely unregulated” platform for unscrupulous activities.

Facebook is only next to YouTube as the most popular social media platform among Filipino netizens.

“They will be uploading YouTube videos that spread disinformation, change the narrative, and show ‘alternate realities’. That’s something we will see,” Caritos said.

Namfrel’s Alvia said even short video formats, like those on TikTok and Instagram, would likely be used in online campaigning to boost engagement and recall.

He said the 2022 campaign might particularly see a lot of discourse on Covid-19-related assistance from politicians, including, but not limited to, social amelioration, access to vaccines, and livelihood support.

“Social media is more accessible to a lot of people and the content is easier to digest but not necessarily correct,” Alvia said. “Kanya-kanyang version ng katotohanan (People will be coming in with various stories of their own).” #

7M hectares of Philippine land are forested — and that’s bad news

May 19, 2021/in News /by Kodao Productions

The country has been vulnerable to massive flooding linked to deforestation. The coronavirus pandemic is also a catastrophe that arose from populations occupying wild animal habitats.

By Karol Ilagan/Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Key findings:

Forest loss persists in the Philippines even with a log ban and protection laws in place.
Forest cover has remained the same since the first Aquino administration as losses in some parts of the country have eclipsed gains in others.
The Mimaropa region – covering Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan – has seen the worst deforestation in recent years.
The Duterte government excluded reforestation efforts among its commitments to mitigate climate change under the 2016 Paris Agreement.
Bills that are meant to address legal gaps in protecting forests are languishing in Congress.

Mindoro is the seventh largest island of the Philippines. It sits at the bottom of Luzon, where the country’s capital is located, and stretches toward the northern tip of Sulu Sea. Large ships pass through its unpredictable waters, and on its seabed lie the wreckage of vessels that didn’t survive it.

On land, a spine of mountains runs across its center. Its forests are home to the tamaraw, dwarf buffalos whose images once graced once-peso coins. They used to be widespread, but are now critically endangered.

Land conversion has wiped out most of the habitat of the tamaraws. The lush expanse of forests where they liked to wallow in mud pits undisturbed have been flattened to make way for human settlements.

The same fate has befallen a species of pigeons called Mindoro bleeding-heart, named so because their breasts resemble a puncture wound with a blotch of orange at the center that deepens to dark red.

The rate of deforestation, which in turn drives the endangerment of species on the island, has been alarming, said ecologist Neil Aldrin Mallari, who studies the Mindoro bleeding-heart as president of the Center for Conservation Innovations.

The birds are also found on the islands of Negros, Panay, and Mindanao but the lowland forests where they used to live — the temperature there is right and fruits are aplenty — have drastically thinned through the years.

Mallari said the few remaining pigeons try to adapt, retreating to high altitudes where there are still trees to offer refuge. Those trees are their last stand.

Mindoro lost more than 200,000 hectares of forest cover from 2003 to 2015. That’s about the size of land that 3,000 SM Mall of Asia complexes would cover if they stood side by side. The neighboring tourist haven of Palawan also lost nearly 30,000 hectares of forest land during the same period, based on government data.

The losses of Mindoro and Palawan in terms of forest cover make Mimaropa the most deforested region in the Philippines, even if other islands in it such as Marinduque and Romblon had recorded some gains.

Mimaropa is also a microcosm of the state of forests in the country. Some provinces have successfully expanded their forest cover, but the gains were erased by consistent losses in others.

A log ban and a number of laws have been in place for decades to restore the forests, but the absence of a coherent policy on forest management has resulted in various forms of land conversion that continue to drive deforestation at an alarming rate.

The country’s forest cover is only about seven million hectares or 23% of the country’s total land area, based on official numbers, although experts are afraid that this number is overestimated.

That’s a lot of forest lost from the early years of the Spanish colonial period, when forest cover was over 90%. The first Christian missionaries saw trees extending from the shores to the mountaintops, and likened the country to a paradise.

Abuses of the countrys’ forests eventually harmed the population. The massive floods brought by typhoons “Uring” (international name “Thema”) in Ormoc in 1991 and “Ondoy” (“Ketsana”) in Metro Manila in 2009 were just two of the disasters blamed on massive deforestation. Lush forests and watersheds could have held large amounts of rainwater that otherwise flowed into the communities, experts said.

The coronavirus pandemic that is taking its toll on the world — rich and poor countries alike — is also a stark reminder of a catastrophe that happens when populations occupy the habitats of wild animals. Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease that experts said likely jumped from a bat, then to another host species, before it infected humans.

It’s a cycle of tragedies where humans are both the culprits and the victims.

Mallari predicted that Mindoro’s bleeding-hearts would soon vanish. It’s time to think seriously about the impacts of human activities on nature, he said.

“Extinction of species is not just about the cuddly animals,” he said. “We care because they are the building blocks of our ecosystem. ‘Pag nawala sila, wala rin tayo (If they are gone, so are we).”

The Philippines is one of the world’s very few mega-biodiverse countries and one of the most vulnerable to climate impacts. The stakes are higher for the country.

**The vanishing Philippine forests: Extent of forest cover loss in the last century**
Source: Dolom, 2006; Adopted from Environmental Science for Social Change (1999)
Courtesy of Dr. Neil Aldrin Mallari, Center for Conservation Innovations

**Threatened and endemic species are retreating to mountains where forests offer refuge.**
Source: Dr. Neil Aldrin Mallari, Center for Conservation Innovations

Dwindling forests

Forests made up 27.5 million hectares or 92% of the country’s total land area in the 16th century, when Spanish colonizers arrived. Forest cover dropped to 15.8 million hectares during the last years of the American occupation and to 10.6 million hectares just before the declaration of Martial Law.

It further shrank to 6.4 million hectares just after the 1986 People Power Revolution. Since then the country’s forest cover hovered at just under 7 million hectares on average.

The Americans systematized logging, which worsened during Martial Law when dictator Ferdinand Marcos rewarded relatives and cronies with Timber License Agreements (TLA). The country recorded one of the worst deforestation rates in the Asia and Pacific region during those years, losing 316,000 hectares of forest annually on average. The TLA holders did not adopt selective logging, a sustainable way of harvesting timber. They cleared forests, did not replant, and even went beyond their concession areas.

Each administration drew up policies and programs to restore forests. Rehabilitation efforts have been in place since the 1910s, and there’s a long list of acronyms and agreements between and among national and local governments, communities living within and near forests, as well as the private sector.

But these efforts were mired in allegations of mismanagement, corruption and power play.

Following the fall of the Marcos regime, the Cory Aquino government prioritized reforestation with support from bilateral partners and multilateral institutions. Timber exports were banned in 1992 and community-based approaches were introduced following the devastation brought by Typhoon “Uring,” whose heavy rains submerged Ormoc City and killed over 5,000 Filipinos.

Jose Andres Canivel, executive director of the Forest Foundation, said massive deforestation stopped when the government halted the issuance of TLAs. No conclusive data was available, but the shift to Community-Based Forestry Management Agreements might have helped ease the pressure on forests, he said. It’s a tenurial instrument that allows qualified upland communities and people’s organizations to develop, utilize and manage portions of forest lands and resources.

Forests recover if left alone, and conversion to agricultural land, timber poaching, and forest fires are stopped. They regenerate with the help of bats, birds, and other animals that disperse seeds, Canivel said.

He cited areas in the Sierra Madre and Apayao, which were once logged over but now have closed-canopy forests. “Nag-logging d’yan, natigil (They used to log there), now the forest has taken it back,” he said.

The second Aquino government also embarked on a massive reforestation program, the National Greening Program, which aimed to double the country’s forest cover by 2028. Funded by taxpayers’ money, it sought to rehabilitate 7.1 million hectares of unproductive, denuded, and degraded forest lands.

President Benigno Aquino III also banned logging across the country entirely, in the wake of severe floodings that also claimed many lives. Prior to the executive order, the impacts of Tropical Storm “Sendong” (“Washi”) in December 2010 and Typhoon “Ondoy” (“Ketsana”) in September 2009 were linked to deforestation.

Despite these efforts, however, the country’s forest cover has not grown from 7 million hectares since the first Aquino administration. It hit a plateau because gains from restoration efforts in some parts of the country were erased by losses in others.

The steady numbers betray the alarming rate of deforestation in many parts of the country, according to experts. The geographical breakdown of 12 years’ worth of data showed that half of all provinces registered losses totaling more than 154,000 hectares, based on the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority’s satellite survey.

The real situation is probably worse. Canivel said satellite imagery should be verified on the ground because plantations might have also been scanned. Many forests had been cleared to make way for plantations, which did not count as forests, he said. For instance, forests in the Caraga region had been planted with timber, and in Palawan, oil palm.
Samson Pedragosa, Haribon Foundation advocacy officer, also questioned liberal definitions of forests adopted by the Philippines. A half-hectare land with a tree canopy cover of more than 10% is considered a forest, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Mallari said this global definition did not quite match the characteristics of tropical rainforests, which should be dense and diverse. An increase in forest cover might not necessarily be due to growing trees, but because of the way forests were redefined, he said.

Philippine forests are also defined by their physical attributes – more than 1,000 meters above sea level and/or with an 18% slope – rather than their ecological function, Mallari said.

PCIJ requested an interview with the Forest Management Bureau (FMB) to verify the data it had provided as well as understand the country’s forest management strategy. The FMB acknowledged PCIJ’s letter, but could not respond to questions as of writing.

Global Forest Watch (GFW), a US-based monitor of global forests, has an alternate barometer of annual forest loss showing that more than 7,700 hectares of forest cover, equivalent to nearly 20 basketball courts, were lost every hour in the Philippines last year.

This adds up to an area the size of Iloilo City in over a year. The loss was 2% higher in 2020, mirroring the global trend. Last year, forest destruction increased 12% worldwide.

GFW also uses satellite imagery to measure deforestation, but its data cannot be compared with FMB’s. The former monitors not just forest loss, but all other indicators of deforestation, like tree loss, tree gain, and fire alerts.

From 2002 to 2020, the country recorded 150,813 hectares of primary forest loss, GFW data also showed.

Alarming rates of deforestation are happening worldwide. GFW recorded 4.2 million hectares of forest loss, an area the size of the Netherlands, occurring within tropical primary forests around the globe. Some progress, however, has been recorded in Southeast Asia as forest losses in Indonesia and Malaysia have declined for the fourth year in a row in 2020.

Read about Malaysia’s declining forest loss by Rainforest Investigations Network fellow Yao Hua Law of Macaranga.

**Click to see data on forest loss in Philippine provinces**

**Explore recent deforestation and fire alerts via Global Forest Watch**

Greening Program

The Duterte government continued Aquino’s reforestation program. The Enhanced National Greening Program (E-NGP) seeks to rehabilitate 1.2 million hectares of denuded forest lands before President Rodrigo Duterte’s term ends in 2022.

More than 1.74 billion seedlings have been planted from 2011 to 2020 in more than 2 million hectares of land area, FMB records showed. The program likewise generated more than five million jobs.

The E-NGP is among the programs designed to achieve the country’s REDD+ objective – results-based climate change mitigation strategy – under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “REDD” stands for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.” The plus sign represents the expansion of its focus to the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

The Philippines drew up its National REDD+ Strategy in 2010 but an update published by the FMB in June 2017 showed that the country was still in the “readiness phase” and taking “readiness steps” to establish demonstration sites, as well as undertaking studies to implement it.

FAO’s 2015 Global Forest Resources Assessment ranked the Philippines as fifth among 234 countries with the greatest reported gain in forest area annually from 2010 to 2015. The FMB attributed it to the then four-year-old National Greening Program.

Researchers have raised red flags on the implementation of the program. In 2019, the Commission on Audit (COA) found several issues with the DENR’s fast-tracking of the program as it led to the imposition of targets beyond the capacities of officials; the lack of survey, mapping, and planning; and the inclusion of far untenured areas, which will be abandoned after the term of the maintenance and protection contract, among others.

“Instead of increasing forest cover, fast-tracking reforestation activities only increased the incidences of wastage,” the COA said.

State think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies found that the survival rate of the trees planted under the NGP stood at just 61% in 2016 or below the 85% goal.

Moreover, University of the Philippines researchers found that forest cover loss in three sites in the Sierra Madre mountain range declined from 2011 to 2015 but increased from 2016 to 2018. Using satellite data, the study found that the net effect was a balance of reforestation and deforestation, or no significant gain.

Mallari, Canivel, Pedragosa and former environment undersecretary Antonio La Viña all raised concerns over the implementation of the NGP and the E-NGP. They said the efforts to protect the seedlings, the kinds of trees planted, and where the trees were planted needed to be scrutinized.

GFW data from 2002 to 2020 even showed that forest loss in the Philippines had reached a record high during the Duterte administration. The country lost more than 10,000 hectares of primary forest on average every year during his term. This was higher than the annual averages during the terms of Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III.

In a span of 18 years, forest loss reached its peak in 2017 during Duterte’s second year in office. The decline continued in the following years although the figures remained within the annual average of about 8,000 hectares.

Pockets of success, however, can be found in rehabilitation efforts done by nongovernment organizations, community groups and the private sector in areas such as the Ipo Watershed, Upper Marikina Watershed, and the Masungi Georeserve. At the center of these efforts are the communities that live in or near the forests.

Forests and climate change

The Duterte government excluded reforestation efforts from its list of commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change. Instead, it was included among adaptation measures, in which Manila pledged to “pursue forest protection, forest restoration and reforestation, and access to results-based finance in forest conservation.”

Mitigation is aimed at addressing and minimizing the causes of climate change, while adaptation is focused on reducing its impacts.

This was curious, according to La Viña, also a former climate change negotiator for the Philippines, and Ian Rivera, coordinator of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.

La Viña said he was still studying why the government did not include forests to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in its list of commitments. The sectors included in the country’s mitigation efforts are “agriculture, wastes, industry, transport, and energy.”

Loss of forests is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. At least 20% of global emissions come from deforestation. Addressing the problem is crucial to avoiding the dangerous impacts of climate change.

“We should be looking at enhancement so we can go back to at least 10 million (hectares), for instance,” said La Viña.

Neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia are good examples as they have placed forests front and center to mitigate emissions. Indonesia imposed a moratorium on the clearing of primary forests, prohibited the conversion of remaining forests, and adopted sustainable forest management measures. Malaysia committed to conserve its Central Forest Spine, which supplies 90% of its water, and the 220,000-square-kilometer “Heart of Borneo,” said to be Asia’s last great rainforest.
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty that aims to avert climate catastrophe. A total of 196 parties were expected to submit action plans last year. The commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are detailed in documents called nationally determined contributions or NDC.

A financial mechanism was also established, in which high-emitting developed countries provide funds to less industrialized countries. This will help developing countries like the Philippines, which emitted an average of 1.98 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita in 2020 or about half of the global average of four metric tons, bear the brunt of climate change.

Duterte initially aired his misgivings about the Paris climate agreement, questioning how developed countries had dictated the terms of the collective fund that would be used to help developing countries achieve climate goals. He eventually signed it in March 2017.

Based on the NDC it submitted to the UNFCCC on April 15, 2021, the Philippines is targeting to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 75% by 2030. Accomplishing 72.29% of this goal depended on funding and assistance from the international community, based on its report to the UNFCCC on April 15, 2021.

No greenlight for the ‘green bills’

Just maintaining the country’s forest cover is not enough, said La Viña, who is now executive director of the Manila Observatory, a scientific research center. “[There’s] no major initiative or nothing significantly negative comes to mind,” he said.

He said proper management of the country’s forests is key, but laws that seek to do this have been languishing in Congress.

The country’s primary forest code is a Martial Law-era presidential decree that essentially promotes commercial logging, La Viña said. Although P.D. 705 has since been modified with the passage of the National Integrated Protected Area System in 1992 and the Indigenous People’s Rights Act in 1997, a different law is needed to set the criteria on how forest resources should be managed and utilized, he said.

“There’s no criteria when you can cut or not because we’re still using the old forestry code,” La Viña said.

Canivel said P.D. 705 promised an industrialization scheme where forests would contribute to the economy, but this didn’t happen. He made the same call to pass “green bills” pending in Congress. The log ban that Aquino issued in 2011 is only an executive order.

Experts have identified at least three urgent “green” bills – the National Land Use Act (NLUA), the Sustainable Forest Management Act (SMFA), and the Alternative Minerals Management Act (AMMA).

Passage of the NLUA is needed to delineate forest boundaries and protect them. Land conversions are the main threats to forests, said Haribon’s Pedragosa.

“Hindi pwedeng gamitin sa agriculture. Hindi pwede gamitin sa iba pang uses kung hindi forest lang talaga (It cannot be used for agriculture. It cannot be used for other purposes but it’s supposed to be just for forests),” he said.

The SMFA is needed to set criteria for allowing logging, and settle debates on whether or not the government should allow selective logging or commercial logging. It should not be preoccupied with issuing timber-cutting or tree-cutting permits, and should set aside areas for conservation and management, restoration, and sustainable use, Canivel said.

“The new law has to be mindful of what we need to protect, what we need to restore and what we need to allow,” he said.

Intended to replace the Mining Act of 1995, the AMMA seeks to ban extraction in environmentally critical areas such as small-island ecosystems and primary and secondary forests and watersheds. It also seeks to prohibit dumping of mine wastes into water systems.

All these laws are urgent, said Canivel. “We are faced with different realities. We understand forests better now. We certainly need a new policy framework.” FIN

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN).
To learn more about forest stories across the globe, visit the RIN fellows’ page here.
Infographics: Joseph Luigi Almuena

Art festival amid a pandemic? Baguio creatives disagree over how to spend city financial support

March 28, 2021/in News /by Kodao Productions

Baguio was named to the Unesco Creative Cities Network in 2017. The city’s artists evaluate their performance four years later as the UN body is set to review the designation.

BY MARIA ELENA CATAJAN/Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

How essential is art during a pandemic? In November 2020 Baguio City pushed through with the “Ibagiw 3^rd Baguio Creative Festival” to showcase local arts, craft, and performances.

“Ibag iw” is a vernacular term that means someone who came from or something made in Baguio. The festival kicked off at the Baguio Convention Center and was livestreamed for all of the internet to see.

Cultural performers grounded for months performed again, wowing audiences as they entered the stage mounted on horses and sashaying to the beat of gongs – a ritual offering to the mountain gods.

Artisans were able to sell their wares again. Crowds trooped to the University of the Philippines-Baguio and Sunshine Park – ushered in batches to maintain physical distancing – to buy bags, clothes and wraps, wood and silver craft, small art décor, and basketry.

There were new items on display: face masks made of local textiles.

It was a month-long activity that sought to revive the sector shut down by the pandemic. It carried the theme: “Angat Baguio: Rising together through Creative Resiliency, Sustainability and Innovation.”

Artist Karlo Marko Altomonte, director and performance artist, said some 600 Baguio artists were rendered jobless when tourism was shut down by the pandemic.

The tourist drawer Panagbenga was among the first victims of the coronavirus pandemic. The city canceled the festival in February 2020 to avoid a super-spreading event. The flower festival that closes off Baguio’s Session Road for floral floats, street dancing, and a big trade fair has always been the busiest time for many of the city’s creatives.

The pandemic cost Baguio’s tourism industry an estimated P7 billion in revenues last year, based on earlier projections of over 1.5 million tourist arrivals. A tourist usually spends about P2,500 for a half-day stay in the city.

As the pandemic hit artists hard, private groups staged small activities – performances, auctions, and barter events – during the early months of the pandemic in an effort to help the struggling creatives.

Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong also called a meeting with the artists to facilitate discussions on support for the city’s creatives during the pandemic.

Funding for the Ibagiw festival came from a P5-million allocation from the city government. Other activities included the online exhibit Binnadang Cordillera and the Mandeko Kito trade fair, but the festival proper received the bulk of the funding.

Organized by the Baguio Arts and Crafts Collective, Inc. (BACCI), the festival also had the backing of the Department of Tourism. As the country’s coronavirus infections showed signs of ebbing, the group launched efforts to revive tourism and support the economic recovery.

But Baguio’s creatives are split over how the money was spent.

An image from one of the performances at the Ibagiw Creative Festival held in November 2020. File photo: Courtesy of SunStar Baguio

‘Give artists financial aid’

The festival was “generally well-staged” but some events were “overly lavish” and “tone-deaf” considering the pandemic, said Altomonte, creative director of the festival in 2018. It would have been more helpful if some funding was given to artists in need, he said.

“How many artists got compensated in the festival?” Altomonte asked.

“Much of the funds that went to elaborate lights, sound and multimedia equipment, fancy catering to wine and dine a chosen few, could’ve been saved if they did away or at least toned down the staging of certain events. These funds could’ve been allotted instead for more commissioned works for displaced artists, or even direct aid to those who got infected by Covid or to families of artists who passed during the pandemic,” he said.

Luchie Maranan, writer, poet and convener of the group LODI (Let’s Organize for Democracy and Integrity) in Baguio, said the creatives should be trusted to manage funds that would benefit the community.

City hall has the say on how the funds are spent, she pointed out. “There should be a strong organization of artists, creatives, writers, musicians that will stand up for their rights and welfare,” she said.

Aside from ensuring transparency and accountability, this will avoid a situation in which other stakeholders feel left out, Maranan said.

BACCI president Adelaida Lim confirmed that no assistance was given to the sick and those who passed away during the pandemic as well as artists, saying the plan to give the creative sector a “social safety net” was for the long term.

The Mandeko Kito trade fair – which championed arts and crafts made of textile and silver – raked in P1.75 million in sales. The Ibagiw festival exhibits featuring the works of 70 veteran and up-and-coming artists recorded gross sales of P878,000. BACCI, which handpicked the artists after an open call for participation – received a percentage of the sales from both income-generating activities to parry expenses.

BACCI said it didn’t keep a record of sales from the online exhibit Binnadang because the inquiries were directed to the artists.

Something unfortunate also happened: Baguio’s renowned filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik and his wife Katrin tested positive for Covid-19 after the Ibagiw festival. They have since recovered.

“It wasn’t just a finance issue. It was also a safety issue,” said Altomonte. “Only the case of Kidlat Tahimik was made public. We will never know the actual health and safety impact of the events where a considerable mass gathered. [These were] social events that were more of a luxury than a necessity.”

Altomonte referred to photos of opening and closing galas where health protocols, he claimed, were largely ignored. “I found them to be quite risky and irresponsible and, again, ones that the festival could’ve done without. Resources could’ve been directed to artists directly instead,” he said.

Delayed payments to artists

Painted by artist Venazir Martinez, this artwork titled ‘Hila-bana’ shows the 13 indigenous peoples in the Cordillera. Photograph: Lauren Alimondo

The festival was also marred by complaints over delayed payments to artists and artisans and prizes to contest winners. The events, staged to uplift the spirits, have instead caused stress, Altomonte said.

Erlyn Ruth Alcantara, curator of the Interlinked exhibit, said that as of March 20, full payment had yet to be released, as the process was excruciatingly slow.

Alcantara said she was told to submit missing requirements, such as registration with the government procurement portal Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS), four months after the festival.

Lim pointed to the auditors at Baguio City Hall.

“While it is true that we have encountered delays and some glitches in the release of payments due to the accounting and auditing protocols implemented by all government agencies, majority of the services provided have already been settled,” she said.

BACCI said about P2.4 million had yet to be paid for various services rendered for the 2020 event.

BACCI: Ibagiw Festival gave artists hope

National Artist for Film Kidlat Tahimik. File photo: Courtesy of SunStar Baguio

Despite the hitches, Lim said the festival gave artists hope. “[The year] 2020 was different. Beyond financial benefits, though significantly important especially in a time of economic uncertainty, the Creative City Festival gave the creative community the benefit [of] hope, that things are getting better and will get better,” she said.

But Altomonte said BACCI “failed to go beyond the organization it has promised to become.”

“It should go beyond one to two weeks of economic activity [and] commissioned works. What happens after? BACCI has to be more than a producer. When an artist is hospitalized or dies, we do fund-raising among ourselves, there is no support system. They (BACCCI) have been silent in the pandemic, there is no collective voice,” he said.

Lim said BACCI has other programs such as Advanced Skills and Innovation Training for Crafters, branding seminars, an artisans’ fair, competitions, and art exhibits. BACCI is also in discussions to formalize the local creative sector and legitimize professional transactions, which will maximize their economic potential.

Unesco review this year

Baguio City became part of the Unesco Creative Cities Network (UCCN) in 2017, joining 63 other cities from 44 countries. Former Cordillera tourism office chief Venus Tan, backed by University of the Philippines-Baguio Chancellor Raymundo Rovillos, spearheaded the effort.

The network aims to facilitate cooperation among cities and support United Nations frameworks, particularly the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

A first for the country, Baguio City was recognized for the “crafts and folk arts” of the Cordillera region as seen in architecture, parks, textile, fabrics, furniture, fashion accessories, paintings, and sculpture comprising its “creative economy.”

Kidlat Tahimik acknowledged the impact of the Unesco recognition, but said: “Para sa akin with or without Unesco or city hall, artists have been alive and kicking. Kahit maliit support sa artists, they (government) give us crumbs for festivals, we (the artists) put Baguio on the map, not the Panagbenga.”

Artistic works have weathered time and neglect, but the artists have remained true to the call of their muses, the filmmaker said.

Kidlat Tahimik is happy with the attention given by Magalong, the Baguio mayor, but hopes for better times when the contributions of artists are fully recognized and given importance.

“We (artists) cannot be quantified. ‘Di nabibilang ang contributions namin kaya invisible kami (Our contributions are not counted, that’s why we’re invisible). ‘Di kami registered na artists (We’re not registered as artists), we are the smallest tax payers, we are the smallest number of votes, but crafts are the biggest contributor to the creative economy – it’s the weavers, painters, sculptors.”

Unesco will review creative cities designations this year. Lim said she was hopeful the city would be given the title anew.

“We would like to believe that Baguio has a great chance of being considered again after the time of its evaluation, but there are many more [things] to be done especially in creating policies and protocols for creative projects,” she said.

But Altomonte said the city failed to fulfill the goals of the network. He thinks the city’s creative sector needs better leaders who can do more than hold festivals and give away cash prizes.

“What has happened to us? What Unesco wants is for us to develop [and] improve. We have the potential to become a real driver,” Altomonte said. #

‘They treated me like I murdered someone’: Lockdown arrests mark 1st year of PH pandemic response

March 25, 2021/in News /by Kodao Productions

Fines from lockdown arrests have bled poor Filipinos dry while the rich and famous get wrist slaps for similar offenses. Calls for a different approach grow louder as the pandemic lockdown enters its second year.

BY AIE BALAGTAS SEE/Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Hunger pains hit Erwin Macahig, 30, at an inconvenient time on a hot and humid evening in the slums of Navotas.

It was 9 p.m. on April 8, 2020, an hour past the city-imposed curfew that took effect roughly two weeks after the country’s Covid-19 infections began to rise and the Philippine capital was put on lockdown. The city streets turned into a ghost town manned by cops and soldiers in camouflage uniforms. The poorly lit alleys where Macahig lived seemed even darker in the silence of the night.

He was walking toward a sari-sari store when someone grabbed his wrist from behind. A cop. Three of his neighbors – out on the streets like him – were rounded up as well.

The cops were accompanied by barangay officials who were jittery about Covid-19 spreading in the village and wouldn’t tolerate excuses that night from residents who violated the curfew ordinance.

After getting a swab test at a public hospital, Macahig and the three other men were taken to a school where they were to be detained for the next 30 days for “simple disobedience” – unless they could post bail worth P3,000. For someone who had just been retrenched, the amount was a fortune that was impossible to raise in the middle of a pandemic.

“We did not receive financial aid from the government. Our food supply was only a few canned goods and three kilos of rice for a month. And they want us to pay a P3,000 fine? Where are we going to get that money? Frankly, they just made our difficult situation tougher,” Macahig told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in Filipino.

Getting a criminal record for a mere attempt to buy food was beyond Macahig’s imagination.

“I don’t deny committing violations but why did they have to treat me like I just murdered someone?” he said.

Punitive pandemic response

Lockdown arrests marked the early months of the Philippines’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Police Task Force Covid Shield has not released the total number of Filipinos arrested, detained, or fined one year since the lockdown began on March 15, but it was already at 100,000 as of September 2020.

Police Major General Marni Marcos, chief of the Directorate for Investigation and Detection Management, has yet to respond to PCIJ’s requests for data.

The punitive response has drawn a lot of controversies. In Santa Cruz town, capital of Laguna province, curfew violators, including children, were locked up in a dog cage. In Dasmariñas Village in Makati City, a Spanish national was declared an “undesirable alien” who could no longer return to the country, after an altercation with cops over mask rules. In Quezon City, a former soldier with mental illness was killed by cops after a commotion near a quarantine control point.

Many ended up in packed detention centers, which health and jail experts said were among the worst places to find one’s self in during the pandemic. They called them “breeding grounds” for Covid-19, where detainees were at risk of being exposed to the disease that the government has been trying to protect them from.

In Navotas, about 1,000 people were cramped in the school where Macahig was detained. Fifty violators shared one classroom, he said. At night, they slept on cartons on cold floors. There were no provisions for food, soap, alcohol and potable water, he said.

“I was more afraid of contracting the virus there because we didn’t comply with health protocols in the school at all. Detainees only wore face masks and followed social distancing rules when a high police official arrived for inspection,” Macahig said.

They were later transferred to an open space – a covered court behind the school building – after the school was converted into a quarantine site for suspected Covid-19 cases.

His friends and family – all of whom were financially knocked out by business closures themselves – eventually raised funds for his bail. “They did it out of pity. Some donated P20; others P100,” he said.

Macahig was released on April 23 after he paid the fine. He pled guilty before a municipal trial court.

Relatives of quarantine violators wait outside the Navotas Metropolitan Trial Court to get their kin out of detention. There was a narrow window for the processing of release documents, 8 a.m. to noon, as working periods were shortened because of the pandemic. Photograph: Vincent Go

‘My family thought I was dead’

Other than imposing curfews, local governments also issued travel passes to limit the number of people allowed to go out even during day time. Those who didn’t have passes were arrested, too.

But Caloocan fish vendor Joseph Jimeda, known to many social media users as “Mang Dodong,” said he was arrested despite having a travel pass.

He was travelling to neighboring Navotas with friends to buy fish that they could sell in the market when the police took them on suspicion they didn’t have travel passes. Jimeda said he begged the cops for compassion because he had a four-year old at home and his wife had a cataract and could barely see.

“We kept explaining that we have them (about the travel passes), but the cops never listened to us. They just wanted to arrest people,” Jimeda said in an interview.

At the detention center, Jimeda received smacks and punches from authorities, instead of food and help. He could not inform his family of his whereabouts because he did not have a mobile phone at that time. The police did not help him. “All the while my family thought I was dead,” he said.

Jimeda was detained in the same covered court in Navotas several weeks after Macahig was released. Again, there was not enough food for the growing number of detainees. Those who didn’t receive visitors often suffered from hunger, he said.

“‘Yung iba akala mo patay-gutom (You’d think the others were destitutes),” Macahig said. “Some of them will join you in your meals uninvited. It’s embarrassing to shoo them away.”

Jimeda was released onMay 19 after 12 days in detention.

Photo shows Mang Dodong in detention at the enclosed Navotas Sports Complex on May 14, 2020. The sports complex served as a detention center for quarantine violators. Photograph: Vincent Go

No money to pay fines

Those who couldn’t pay the fines had to stay longer in detention.

Randy delos Santos, a coordinator of the church group Paghilom led by Fr. Flavie Villanueva, said several people from the slums have sought financial assistance from their office in Manila since April of last year.

They had similar complaints: Being fined and arrested for violating quarantine rules.

The penalties ranged from P250 to P50,000, depending on the type of violation alleged and the city where it was committed.

Delos Santos said the calls for help usually came from people in Navotas, Manila and Caloocan.

Delos Santos said there should be a shift in policies because fines imposed by ordinances that were passed to address the health crisis were bleeding the poor dry and sending them into deeper debt.

“It’s an additional burden to the poor,” delos Santos said. “Local governments should channel their energies toward educating the people and teaching the community how to follow proper health protocols,” delos Santos said.

While the poor suffered fines and long days in detention centers for finding ways to fend off their hunger, the past year has shown that the rich and powerful can hold parties and receive token wrist slaps for their violations.

In January, events organizer and host Tim Yap organized a party in Baguio City, attended by guests who didn’t wear masks, among them contact-tracing czar and Baguio mayor Benjamin Magalong. Another celebrity, Raymond Gutierrez, threw a birthday party at trendy Bonifacio Global City Taguig the same month.

In the early days of the pandemic, Makati Medical Center castigated Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III for breaching quarantine protocols when he brought his pregnant wife to the hospital while he was waiting for the results of his test for Covid-19.

Philippine National Police chief Debold Sinas was caught holding a birthday party inside Camp Aguinaldo, while the president’s spokesperson, Harry Roque, visited a marine park in Subic. There were no repercussions for the two despite the ban on mass gatherings and unessential travel.

A different approach is needed

Carlos Conde, researcher for Human Rights Watch in Asia, said local governments must rethink “anti-poor policies” such as sending people to jail for breaking health protocols and fining violators who are obviously penniless.

“No one should spend a night in jail for violating quarantine rules. That’s inhumane,” Conde told PCIJ.

Conde said that instead of arrests and fines, the local government should channel their efforts into a massive information drive for the public to better understand the dangers of the virus that has so far killed two million people worldwide.

Political science professor Maria Ela Atienza said the government should train its sights on harnessing “bayanihan” or community spirit among Filipinos instead of imposing a culture of crime and punishment to address the pandemic. The public needed to be encouraged to take care of themselves in order to take care of one another, she said.

Atienza said the government’s message was “people should just follow rules” instead of “the government is doing its best to make sure we have enough resources for public health and we are tying our best to support those who were economically dislocated as a result of the lockdown and we need the help of everyone to help each other.”

“The language is not focused on the cooperation of people, it’s more about getting them to follow. Otherwise, you’ll be meted with punishment. It’s (the government narrative) not for a country that’s supposed to be democratic,” she said.

To encourage better public participation, Atienza said efforts must be exerted to ensure that the law applied equally to the rich and the poor.

“The pandemic and the response of the government… exposed the inequality not only in Philipine politics but in Philippine society where you have senators and other officials, even police personnel, who violate the lockdown restrictions but at the same time they are not penalized,” she said

“But you have fish, vegetable vendors and jeepney drivers trying to find alternative sources of income penalized heavily. So you also see inequality in terms of enforcement of lockdown rules and accountability on the part of government officials,” she added.

Mang Dodong finally on his way home, late in the afternoon of May 19, 2020. Photograph: Vincent Go

One year after the Philippines went into lockdown, data from the World Health Organization showed the country as having the worst coronavirus performance in the Western Pacific Region, with a total of 611,618 infections and 12,694 deaths as of March 14.

Infections are rising again, hovering between over 2,000 to nearly 4,000 new cases a day in recent days after months of recording less than 2,000 daily new infections on average. Metro Manila mayors have again imposed uniform curfew hours, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., beginning March 15.

The punitive response cannot continue, said Macahig. “The government should find better solutions. It needs to stop imposing fines that only makes the poor poorer. We’re in the middle of a pandemic yet they keep milking us for money.” #

Marilao’s poultry processing plants fail lab tests

February 24, 2021/in News /by Kodao Productions

Reporting fellows of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) collected water samples from the waste pipes of plants along the Marilao River. Laboratory tests show they failed to meet DENR standards.

BY ANNIE RUTH SABANGAN, ROBERT JA BASILIO JR., BERNARD TESTA AND RIC PUOD

Part 4 of 4

Part 1: The Bulacan town where chickens are slaughtered and the river is dead

Part 2: ‘The wastewater looked like mud’: EMB goes after Vitarich Corp.

Part 3: Marilao River polluters get away with small fines

What you need to know about Part 4:

The PCIJ collected water samples from the poultry processing plants in Marilao and laboratory tests showed they failed to meet the standards of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
To help police pollution, a lawyer-environmentalist suggests that non-government organizations help the government evaluate the SMRs of business establishments.

It was low tide when the PCIJ team made a second trip to Sapang Alat or Salty Creek on Oct. 2, 2019, a week after the first. Renting another outrigger was out of the question as it couldn’t sail through the shallow waters. The team rented a rickety canoe instead, and asked the help of a boatman to paddle towards Vitarich Corporation’s outfall pipes.

PCIJ set out to take more samples of wastewater that the company released to the creek, a tributary of the Marilao River, to bring them to a laboratory accredited by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

In the succeeding weeks the team also trekked to Brgy. Loma de Gato, home to the biggest number of poultry dressing plants, to do the same.

Results of the laboratory tests confirmed what residents already knew. The plants had been releasing wastewater that did not meet DENR’s standards.

Water sample: PCIJ follows instructions from experts

The samples were brought to the laboratory of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) in Quezon City.

The PCIJ team made sure to follow instructions from SRA chemists on how to take samples, how much should be taken, where to put the specimens, and by what time the samples must reach the laboratory for testing.

To ensure that the samples were representative of the conditions of the area, PCIJ also followed the guidelines set by the EMB in its 2008 Water Quality Monitoring Manual, which said samples should not be collected when (1) it’s raining; (2) it’s within 24 hours after a heavy downpour; and (3) the water level is high.

Wastewater from poultry processing contains high biochemical oxygen demand or BOD and four other oxygen-depleting and fish-killing pollutants: total suspended solids (TSS), ammonia, nitrate and phosphate.

Based on DENR standards, the BOD of wastewater produced by slaughtering and meat packing businesses like chicken dressing plants should not exceed 50 milligrams per liter (mg/l).

A high BOD indicates that the wastewater is untreated or undertreated, and thus polluted. A low BOD suggests that the contaminants had been removed from the wastewater and would have less environmental impact when released to a water body.

TSS are solid materials such as silt, sewage, and decaying animal matter. In poultry processing plants, these may include the buildup of feathers, fat and lard, offal, viscera, blood, and fecal matter in the wastewater.

The release of liquid waste with too much TSS will block the sunlight from reaching the vegetation in a water body, causing the plants to die and stop producing dissolved oxygen needed by fish to survive.

Ammonia in the form of ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-N), a colorless chemical gas compound highly soluble in water, can be found in the liquid manure of chickens and other livestock. This type of ammonia can “cross from water to fish” and is said to be the “the most toxic form to aquatic life.”

Chemical compounds nitrate and phosphate, commonly used as fertilizers, can be present in fecal matter expelled by poultry before the birds undergo scalding.

Wastewater containing too much nitrate and phosphate can hasten the process called eutrophication, or the increase of nutrients that induces the overgrowth of algae. This can cause the water body to turn green and reduce its oxygen content to levels that can also lead to fish kills.

Other than these five parameters, the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) measures three others – oil and grease, acidity or pH, and temperature – to test the quality of wastewater discharges of these establishments.

The chicken dressing industry in Marilao River –– a Class C freshwater resource meant for fish propagation, agricultural use, fishing, and boating –– is required to follow all eight parameters, based on DENR Administrative Order (DAO) 2016-08 or the Water Quality Guidelines and General Effluent Standards of 2016.

The regulations are strict on paper but they are not always implemented, based on PCIJ’s experiment.

Vitarich Corp. fails tests

The laboratory results were out five days after PCIJ submitted the water samples from Sapang Alat.

The lab results of Vitarich Corp. showed mixed results. The level of pollution in the water sample collected from the mouth of the dressing plant’s former outfall was lower than the effluent limits set by the EMB in terms of BOD, TSS, nitrate, and color.

The water samples were collected nine months since the EMB cemented off a canal where the dressing plant’s effluents used to flow.

However, samples from the effluent outfall from the rendering plant that Vitarich operates jointly with PSP Aqua yielded BOD and TSS levels that were 346 percent and 15 percent higher than the EMB-set effluent limits, respectively.

These results were based on water samples that the PCIJ team collected on Oct. 2, 2019.

The PCIJ learned from the Legal Section of the EMB’s Clearance and Permitting Division that as of Oct. 28, 2019, the violation notice and cease-and-desist order against the rendering plant had been temporarily lifted so that the facility could release its wastewater for sampling purposes.

PCIJ also obtained samples from the part of the creek between Marilao’s Municipal Health Office and the Vitarich dressing plant to determine the ambient water quality of Sapang Alat. They were tested for five parameters, namely BOD, DO, TSS, nitrate, and color.

The area was within the mouth of the creek that emptied into the Marilao River. Upstream, along Brgy. Patubig, the creek meandered through a host of other industrial and commercial establishments, which could also be possible sources of pollution.

Water quality failed in all parameters, indicating that because of very high pollution levels, it could no longer receive wastewater and still be able to breathe and cleanse itself.

A chemist at the Sugar Regulatory Administration laboratory on North Avenue in Quezon City checks on Oct. 2, 2019 the bottles containing water samples from a tributary creek of the Marilao River in Bulacan and effluent samples from the outfalls of Vitarich’s chicken dressing and rendering plants. Photograph: Annie Ruth Sabangan/PCIJ

Even if industrial establishments like Vitarich discharged wastewater into Sapang Alat within the effluent limits, the creek would no longer be able to take it in because it has already stagnated, said EMB Region 3’s Glenn Aguilar, who monitors the Marilao River.

Sapang Alat’s BOD was over 3,600 times higher than its 7 mg/l capacity, causing the creek’s DO concentration to fall to the “hypoxic” or oxygen-deprived level of 1.13 mg/l.

Based on an undated report on hypoxia by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), conducted in the Gulf of Mexico and Long Island Sound, bottom fishes start to leave water bodies when oxygen levels reach about 3 mg/l. Fish and crustaceans that cannot leave the area may die when it goes below 2 mg/l, and then begin to die in large numbers when it goes below 1 mg/l.

In the Philippines, there is yet no comprehensive study about hypoxia, or the depletion or reduction of oxygen in water bodies, particularly on how aquatic species react under low-oxygen conditions.

Follow the stench: PCIJ checks other plants in Loma de Gato

EMB’s Aguilar said other chicken dressing plants in Marilao were inaccessible to inspectors. Sometimes, the pathway is dangerous.

To verify this claim, the PCIJ team trekked to Loma de Gato, Marilao’s most populated barangay and home to the biggest number of poultry dressing plants accredited by the Department of Agriculture’s National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS).

While data from the NMIS showed that there were four dressing facilities in Loma de Gato, mostly tucked away in an area called Pook Looban 1, the information was hard to validate via on-site investigation even though the stench was all over the place.

Most of what appeared to be industrial or commercial premises in Looban 1 didn’t have outdoor signages. Some establishments were enclosed by walls higher than roofs and trees, while others were smack in the middle of sprawling lots buffered from roadways.

The PCIJ also failed to pinpoint dressing plants within Looban 1 via Google’s web and mobile apps.

Asked by PCIJ during an interview in October 2019 if not having business signages was legal, Marilao BPLO chief Martin Armando C. Cruz said, “Hindi naman din (It isn’t).”

There should be an ordinance from the municipal council prohibiting the lack of signages, he said.

Cruz also claimed that some establishments had opted not to install outdoor signages to avoid unwanted solicitations for money.

Much harder to locate were the dressing plants’ wastewater outfalls. Several times, the PCIJ team waded through the boggy and mosquito-infested edges of Marilao River’s tributaries to look for point-source pipes and drains.

*POLLUTION HUNT: The PCIJ team had to wade through turbid and mosquito-infested creeks to look for direct wastewater sources in Brgy. Loma de Gato, Marilao, Bulacan. Photograph: Bernard Testa*/PCIJ

In one field visit, the group walked by the roadside and saw a stream where the water was cascading, indicating that direct pollution sources could be farther upstream.

But it was impossible to walk on the narrow banks of the stream sandwiched between an expansive walled property and a row of houses.

Taking instructions from a resident, the PCIJ team tried to find another path toward the water body through an inner road that led to a cemetery.

At the back of the graveyard, the team saw the stretch of the stream beside a nameless, walled establishment that appeared to be the extension of a property earlier seen by the team from the roadside.

From the side of the establishment, the PCIJ team saw at least three outfalls protruding from the streambank that appeared to be connected to the walled property, which residents claimed was a poultry processing plant.

Staggering on mossy rocks that stuck out of the streambed, the group inspected the muddy water body that was filled with strands of what looked like chicken feathers.

The team also saw water ̶ brown, orange, to reddish in color ̶ gushing out of the three outfalls and into the stream.

Too much phosphate

Early morning on Oct. 25, 2019, the team returned to the area to get wastewater samples from two of the outfalls. The PCIJ had these tested again by the SRA lab for BOD, TSS, nitrate, phosphate, and color.

NO, NOT CHOCO DRINK, ORANGE JUICE, OR VINEGAR. The bottles containing wastewater samples from Pook Looban 1, Brgy. Loma de Gato in Marilao, Bulacan that the PCIJ brought to the laboratory of the Sugar Regulatory Administration in Quezon City on Oct. 25, 2019. Photograph: Annie Ruth Sabangan/PCIJ

Lab results showed that effluents from both outfalls failed in three of the five parameters’ effluent limits, namely BOD, TSS, and phosphate.

Results indicated that the wastewater did not undergo treatment and had a very high degree of pollution, as BOD concentrations from the first and second outfalls were 5,584 percent and 4,850 percent higher than the government-set 50 mg/l-effluent limit, respectively.

Also, phosphate concentrations in the effluents were markedly high. The phosphate content of the wastewater in the first outfall was over 8,000 times higher than the 1 mg/l limit set by the EMB, while in the second, the phosphate level was nearly 7,000 times greater than the cap.

Phosphate is used as a poultry product enhancer. The injection of water with phosphate salts into chicken meat is among the steps in poultry processing. This is done to help the protein in the meat bind more water and retain moisture and flavor.

Researchers had found that the phosphorous-protein content of enhanced meat and poultry products was 28 percent higher than in the same types of product that didn’t use phosphate additives.

This was according to a 2009 study titled “Phosphorous and Potassium Content of Enhanced Meat and Poultry Products: Implications for Patients Who Receive Dialysis,” by nephrologists Richard Sherman and Ojas Mehta of the New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

In water bodies, too much phosphate is known to hasten eutrophication or the buildup of nutrients, causing microscopic plant-like organisms called phytoplankton to reproduce rapidly.

This results in the overproduction of that slimy stuff called algae that can make water bodies appear green, brown, red or blue; and form foam, scum or oily films on their surfaces.

More algae mean higher consumption of dissolved oxygen in water, depriving aquatic life such as fish of the life-sustaining gas, leading to the latter’s death.

The PCIJ team also had the ambient water quality of another Marilao River tributary in Looban 1 tested by the SRA laboratory.

The group took samples after observing that the outflow of water into the creek, which was near high-walled establishments, was like a flood of frothy latte continuously pouring from a giant coffee machine.

*FROTHY LIKE CAFFE LATTE. The oxygen-depleted creek in Pook Looban 1, Brgy. Loma de Gato, Marilao, Bulacan. Image taken on Oct. 25, 2019. Photograph: Bernard Testa*/PCIJ

Like Sapang Alat, the river tributary in Brgy. Sta. Rosa 1 earlier tested by the SRA, this creek in Brgy. Loma de Gato also failed the water quality standards set by the EMB on BOD, DO, TSS, nitrate, phosphate, and color.

But the pollution in this creek was much worse. Its demand for oxygen ̶ 1,279 mg/l ̶ was over 18,000 times higher than the EMB standard of 7 mg/l. Inversely, its oxygen concentration was extremely low at 1.16 mg/l.

Also, the phosphate level in the creek was way too high at 48 mg/l, or 9,500 times more than the limit of 0.5 mg/l for Class C water bodies or those, according to the EMB, that should be fit for aquatic resource propagation, fishing, boating, agriculture, irrigation, and livestock watering.

Effective, lasting solutions needed

Because of years of abuses by private companies amid weak environmental governance and the failure of regulation, Marilao River is dead and blackened by pollution.

Narrowed and shallowed by volumes of harmful contaminants, the barren and pernicious river can no longer repair itself. During high tide and heavy rains, it often threw up the wastes it could no longer absorb, submerging communities in toxic, persistent floods.

More lasting and effective solutions are not in sight. Could it be time for a third-party entity to intervene and help fill the gap?

Lawyer and environmentalist Galahad Pe Benito thinks so, and says the non-profit sector should take the lead.

Benito, who used to practice in California and is now campaigning for the rehabilitation of the Manila Bay and the tributaries surrounding it, said environmental self-policing worked in other countries because people’s organizations were ready to “pounce on” pollutive business establishments.

The SMR system is ineffective because compliance is weak and there are no nongovernment organizations (NGO) to countercheck the SMRs, he said.

“Walang mga NGOs dito to do the counterchecking and everything…Dito mahina ang compliance natin, so medyo may problema onhow to implement that,” said Benito, who specializes in hazardous and toxic waste regulation, marine pollution, and pollution control.

The responsibility of monitoring pollution point sources and evaluating SMRs can be assigned by the government to NGOs or to “respectable and independent auditors,” Benito said.

NGOs’ access to SMRs should not be a problem because under the law, these reports are considered public documents.

The procedural manual of DAO No. 2007-23 states that, “Upon completion of EMB’s evaluation, the SMRs are considered as public documents.”

“As such, access [to] these documents by written request of the general public shall be allowed in accordance with applicable rules and regulations.”

The manual further noted that, “The SMR was designed in such a way that there is no need for confidential business information to be included in the submission.” — PCIJ, February 2021

This series was produced with the support of Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Philippines.— PCIJ