Friday, July 04, 2008

Rushing to conclusions on power reforms

Here's an example of how foreign observers get some things fundamentally wrong on the Philippines. Greg Rushford's piece on the Philippine power sector was published last week in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal. While many of his observations---especially about the petulance and childishness of the Philippine Senate were correct---he was wrong on one important conclusion. He mistakenly thought that amending the power sector reform law to make open access possible even with a lower threshold for NPC assets privatization (50% instead of the 70% in the current law) meant the country was backtracking on privatization. I wonder how he arrived at the conclusion. As long-time observer and participant of and in the power sector, I find his recklessness appalling.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hiya old bean! You're back!