INGAT KA, NANI! Justice Secretary Hernando Perez better be careful in parrying charges of Bulacan Rep. Willie B. Villarama that a still unnamed Cabinet official extorted some $2 million from a prominent individual who has a problem with the justice system.

Villarama happens to have bank documents and a direct witness who is ready to testify. Perez better not dare the congressman to “name names,” because the latter might just oblige and precipitate a Cabinet purge before Christmas.

We suppose Perez, like most officials, has a dollar account abroad. He must know that there is always a paper trail when fund transfers overseas are made.

In the case of the Million-dollar Man in the Arroyo Cabinet, the $2-million payoff was made through the official’s bank in Hong Kong. His victim ordered his bank in Uruguay to wire the money to the account of the Cabinet member. The transfer was documented every step of the way.

Did the $2-million grease money solve the victim’s legal problem? Not yet. No wonder, he is smarting and itching to testify once given iron-clad protection as a state witness.

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MIRANT GIVES SIDE: Mirant Philippines, the biggest and most profitable (P11.5-billion net income last year) independent power producer in the country, said yesterday that the mercury emissions of its plants here and the US are within accepted and tolerable levels.

As regards the six power plants in the US eastern seaboard that we listed in our Postscript of 07Nov02 as emitting large amounts of noxious mercury into the air, Mirant said their emissions are “at par with the US industry average for fossil-fuel fired generation.”

Deadly mercury is released into the air by coal-fired power plants and wafted as far as 1,000 kilometers downwind. The poison can cause severe brain damage in fetuses, tremors, mental disorders, and even death. Heavy exposure can damage the nervous system, especially the brain.

Many pregnant and breast-feeding women are not even aware that mercury in the air is particularly harmful to their babies. The invisible poison adversely affects children’s intelligence, coordination, and memory.

Yet there is no earnest government effort to curb this environmental menace posed by the continued operation of inefficient coal-fired power plants.

In many places, it is the threatened communities themselves that protest the noxious emissions, with the government usually taking the side of the IPPs in the name of progress.

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SUAL & PAGBILAO PLANTS: Froilan Gregory Ho Romualdez, Mirant’s external affairs manager, said in an email: “Mirant has an excellent compliance performance record in the United States. It has no record of air emission violations in terms of mercury and has complied with all environmental standards.”

Referring to our mention of six Mirant plants in the US using coal and releasing mercury into the air, Romualdez said:

“Mirant’s fleet in the US also includes natural gas-fired units that have zero mercury emissions. Our company-wide air emission rates, including our international assets, are at par with the US industry average for fossil-fuel fired generation.

“Environmental standards (US EPA, Philippine Clean Air Act) are designed such that compliance means that there will be no serious degradation of public health nor of the environment.

“In the operation of its two coal-fired plants in the Philippines (in Sual and Pagbilao), Mirant more than complies with the Clean Air Act. While the law permits 10 Ncm (normal cubic meter) of mercury air emissions, our Pagbilao and Sual power stations do only 0.0003 and 0.0047 Ncm respectively. Mirant has gone beyond compliance in this regard.”

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NO TOTAL REDUCTION: Romualdez added: “There is yet no available technology to totally eradicate mercury emissions. This can however be brought down to environmentally acceptable levels. The technology we utilize captures 99.9 percent of mercury emissions.

“The total tons of mercury noted in the article (Postscript) are an aggregate amount for 1999. Stating air emissions in gross, aggregate terms (such as tons per year) can be very misleading because it reflects the size of our company rather than any risk posed by the air emissions to public health and the environment.

“For example, actual air emissions of mercury from the referenced plants are in trace amounts as evidenced by our emission rate of 0.00003 pounds per megawatt-hour.”

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NOTHING TO HIDE: The local Mirant plants are in Pagbilao, Quezon, 735 megawatts (coal); Sual, Pangasinan, 1,218 mw (coal); Navotas-1, 210 mw (oil-fired gas turbine); Navotas-2, 100 mw (oil-fired gas turbine); Oriental Mindoro, 30 mw (diesel); Ilijan, Batangas, 1,250 mw (natural gas); and Toledo, 135 mw (coal and industrial fuel oil).

You get an idea of the size of Mirant not only from its P11.5-billion net profit last year. Its total investment in the Philippines is $2.5 billion, while its investment in environmental technologies is $220 million.

Romualdez said: “We feel our environmental performance is strong. Like all companies we are not perfect. We have nothing to hide and in the US, we have chosen to voluntarily report our environmental performance on an annual basis, beyond what is required by regulations. We make this information available to the public via our website.”

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ON WITH THE CRUSADE!: Now that he has achieved a tighter hold on the US Congress, will President George W. Bush trigger high-tech fireworks over Baghdad skies even ahead of the New Year?

Whether or not you’ve read this piece before, it won’t hurt — unless doubling up in laughter has now become a painful exercise for you — to read it again in light of the grim times:

A British doctor said “Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another and have him looking for work in six weeks.”

A German doctor replied, “That’s nothing, we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another and have him looking for work in four weeks.”

The Russian doctor then claimed, “In my country we can take 1/2-a-heart out of one person, put it in another and have them BOTH looking for work in two weeks.”

An American doctor, not to be outdone, said, “You guys are way behind — we just took a Texas guy with NO BRAINS, put him in the White House and now 1/2 the country is looking for work, the other 1/2 preparing for war….”