COLORADO SPRINGS, USA – Seventy-one of the 97 U.S. senators who voted for the stopping of oil flow into the strategic petroleum reserve (this is a bomb-proof underground oil storage inside mined out salt domes whose geological origin I have explained in my previous column) in the hope of lowering fuel pump price (the headline today is fuel prices breaching the $4/gal gasoline pump price, equivalent to P47/liter in the Philippines) also OPPOSED drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Such is the hypocrisy of politicians who want to look good with the so-called environmentalist populace while attempting to lower high fuel cost in the country. Had they (including Pres. Clinton) not stopped oil drilling at the ANWR, one million barrels/day from the 10.4 billion oil reserves would be flowing now and would have eased the unprecedented high gasoline cost in the US.

The same group (Pres. Clinton and his cohorts of senators) also voted to put 85% of America’s offshore areas off limits to drilling. The US Mineral Management Services says that the restricted area contains 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cu. ft. of natural gas. And the irony of it all is that China, together with Cuba, is drilling just 60 miles off the Florida coast! It is even worse in the Philippines as we have already identified large coal deposit in Semirara (this writer was part of the exploration team of PNOC that discovered and defined the coal deposit) and yet RISE of Purzuelo, Lim and Oso vehemently opposes its use in Iloilo! It is said that the tyranny of the few is the tyranny that lasts.

At a UN summit coordinated by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Rome, world leaders pledged to boost agricultural production to combat the food crisis that is spreading hunger and violent unrest around the world. The BIOFUEL (ethanol from corn and sugar cane) program was the most sensitive topic discussed. The summit declared that an “in-depth study” be made so that biofuels production “does not take food off the table.” Brazil, the U.S. and other big producers of biofuels cannot agree on which crop (corn or sugar) are better suited to produce the energy source and how much they contribute to driving up food prices. The UN is therefore joining the chorus of people who are urging at least a moratorium on government-driven use of food crops to produce biofuels.

Let us put some sense and re-examine the recently-passed Biofuels Law of Senator Zubiri if it is TECHNICALLY FEASIBLE (do we have enough sugar fields to support an alcogas refinery which will replace just 5% of our gasoline consumption of about half a million liters per day without jeopardizing sugar supply?) and ECONOMICALLY VIABLE (that the cost of alcogas produced can compete with the cost of gasoline without government subsidy?). One will need 1-1/2 liters more of alcogas or ethanol to a liter of gasoline to produce the same energy. Research here in the U.S. also shows that CO2 emission of a liter of ethanol burned is equivalent to burning TWO liters of gasoline if we consider the energy used in planting, harvesting and refining sugarcane into ethanol. Ethanol producers in the US enjoy a subsidy of about P10/liter for planting, tariff protection and refining. Surely we cannot afford such subsidies in the Philippines. Let this serve as a somber reminder to RISE that biofuels is not the Holy Grail of the renewable sources of energy. We have to maximize our abundant indigenous energy resources such as coal and natural gas in addressing the energy crisis in our country.

Of course, if I want to eat dinuguan, pinakbet and pork chicken adobo tagalog style, where else to go but to the lone Filipino store in Colorado Springs with a sign board “Sari-Sari Store and Restaurant”.

What pains me is that the Milagrosa rice, which is an “invention” of Filipino rice scientists at IRRI in Los Baños, canned coconut juice and dried mangoes Sari-Sari sells are produced in Thailand! Certainly it is a sad sign of how much we have retrogressed as a nation compared with other Asian countries. But we can still be thankful for the many ordinary Filipinos here who are working very hard to send money back home. We can take solace from what Jose Ortega Y. Gasset said: “What makes a nation great is not primarily its leaders and politicians but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones” and that includes this writer.

One Response to “Dateline USA [Part 9]”

• 1
  Dr. Antonio Gestosani
  June 14th, 2008 05:50

  Yes, all rice we buy here in the State comes from Thailand or Vietnam. My favorite milagrosa rice (Philippine brand) came from Thailand. Mr. Manaay, I feel your pain. As visitor from the Philippines, may be for the first time in your life-experience, you feel betrayed and humiliated by your own country. Yes, I am tired of making excuses to my American friends, the Philippine known to them as the agricultural country in Asia, now the the number one importer of rice in the world. How did this happened? You be the judge.

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