Another hospital for sale

One of the country’s premier hospitals will be up for sale, that is if the family that owns majority of it comes to an agreement.

Capitol Medical Center (CMC) has reportedly been offered to the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) hospital group by the children of founder Dra. Thelma Navarrete-Clemente.

As a private tertiary hospital with a 300-bed capacity, CMC meets exactly the requirements set by MPIC for acquiring a hospital (must be a tertiary hospital with at least 300 beds).

The problem lies with the fact that the children have yet to convince the matriarch to sell. “Hilaw pa,” according to an MPIC source.

Information gathered from CMC sources reveal that Dra. Thelma has four children, only one of who is a doctor-surgeon. The eldest is a physical therapist whom was based in the US but has returned to the Philippines after retiring from his work. He reportedly now wants to join his two non-doctor siblings who are working in different capacities at the hospital.

The Clementes own around 30 percent of CMC while about 50 percent is owned by the doctors practicing at CMC, who own around 300 shares each or about one percent of total. The remaining 20 percent is owned by individuals who inherited their shares from the original partners of Dra. Thelma when she put up CMC.

Dra. Thelma is in her late 80s or early 90s and according to some doctors, there is no way she would sell while still alive. After all, CMC was her baby.

The MPIC hospital group, which now operates or owns several Metro Manila-based hospitals including Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Sta. Mesa, and most recently, Asian Hospital in Muntinlupa, has yet to acquire or manage a Quezon City-based tertiary hospital and if the Clementes come to an agreement, sources said that CMC will be a much welcome addition to the MPIC chain of hospitals. The group currently has equity in Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod and owns Davao Doctors Hospital.

MPIC plans to acquire around 10 more hospitals over the next five years to complete a nationwide network of 15 hospitals. Earlier, MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said that a Cebu-based hospital would be a good acquisition. The group is eyeing to acquire hospitals in Northern Luzon, Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Northern Mindanao and Western Mindanao.

On renewable energy

“I would like to share my views with the purpose of suggesting what would be the sustainable economic and energy development path for our country, the Philippines.

“With the passage of the Renewable Energy (RE) Law, the government and power generators with the assistance of donor countries and financial institutions have developed the IRR and other pertinent regulations for the implementation of the RE Law, including the provision of feed-in-tariff (FIT) that will be paid to RE developers and generators so that it may provide non-fossil power generation to meet future demand of power as well as replace/augment supplies due to retirement of conventional and fossil power generation sources.

“On several occasions, it has been articulated by both local and foreign experts that RE power generation is the sustainable way to go to meet the country’s energy and power needs in the future because:

1) Fossil fuels are finite and will be gone within our lifetimes (oil in 50-60 years, natural gas in 60-70 years, coal in 250 years), while nuclear fissile uranium in 500 years (extendable to 1,000 years with breeder reactor technology).

2) To ensure a cost-effective and sustainable energy mix, the country has to embark on expanded RE power generation to meet incremental growth as well as replace the ageing and expensive fossil power generation sources.

3) The country has to show that it is also willing to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) from power generation as part of its responsibility to the world, as it solicits aid from donor countries for assistance to mitigate climate change and undertake mitigation measures.

4) Fossil and conventional power generation (oil thermal, gas thermal, oil/gas turbines, geothermal) will continue to become expensive since they are all linked or indexed to the world market price of crude oil (diesel, bunker, natural gas, coal and geothermal are indexed in some way to the price of crude oil) and it is estimated that the world price of crude oil will continue to rise from the current $100 per barrel to over $200 per barrel within the next few decades.

5) On the other hand, RE power generation technologies (wind, solar PV, mini-hydro, biomass direct combustion, biomass gasification, biomass cogeneration, ocean thermal energy conversion, etc) would provide electricity rates that is insulated from rising costs of crude oil, and its costs is mainly the recovery of capital cost for its construction and maintenance and operating costs which do not rise at a rate dictated by the price of crude oil.

6) Investing now in RE will surely develop the RE industry in the country (technicians for wind farms, solar PV, biomass plants, mini-hydro, ocean thermal) and propel the country to excellence, that would be otherwise lost if RE is not allowed to grow hand-in-hand with the growth of energy and power demand in the country.

7) If we removed RE power generation by way of eliminating the FIT, the long-term cost of power in the country will rise to high and unsustainable levels over time.

The country’s oil industry deregulation that allows full recovery sans subsidy on the petroleum products encourages judicious use and conservation of oil products. Likewise, the reforms in the electric power industry eliminated government subsidies and budget support to the bankrupt NPC by transferring its debts to the PSALM which is being liquidated thru the universal charge/levy. Before the EPIRA, the NPC’s budget support accounts for 50 percent of the Philippine government’s budget deficit which is unsustainable and would lead to a Greek-like financial meltdown for the country.

8) Not investing in RE now by not adopting FIT will delay approach to break-even point which is estimated by experts to be seven years. Although solar PV panels and wind turbines will become cheaper in five years, not investing on that basis will subject the country to lost opportunities and future costs. Please note that the cost of the FIT x total generation is not the real cost of implementing RE. You have to deduct the cost of the replacement fossil generation without RE, hence there will be a net positive cost savings in favor of RE.

 9) Having a must-run RE as part of the base load will surely bump-off the expensive diesel oil generation, hence, the price setter in the wholesale electricity market (WESM) would be the cheaper non-oil generation such as coal and natural gas, resulting in cheaper spot market prices and savings to the end consumer.

 10) Most RE technologies are easier and quicker to implement, thus meeting short-term power shortages such that anticipated in Mindanao.

 “I think opposition groups need to be educated on the above.” – Marcial T. Ocampo, former executive director, PCIERD-DOST

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]