Business Mirror
Business Mirror
05 Oct 2013
Written by Jonathan L. Mayuga
05 Oct 2013
THE World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on Tuesday warned that the province of Palawan might lose its status as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) Man and Biosphere Reserve with the construction of a coal-fired power plant.
Palawan has maintained its status since 1990, after the Unesco declared the province as a “site of excellence where new and optimal practices to manage nature and human activities are tested and demonstrated.”
The UN body is currently reassessing Palawan’s special status, according to WWF-Philippines, and with the plan to put up a coal-fired power plant, there is a possibility that it may eventually lose such recognition.
“The question is not whether Palawan should develop. The question is how it should develop. Business as usual will no longer cut it. We need to mainstream next practices. Fifty-year-old formulas, such as fossil-fuel dependence, will fall by the wayside,” Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan, vice chairmen and CEO of the WWF-Philippines said in a statement.
Tan said the Philippines need to break away from centralized grid-dependence and balance its energy mix.
The current proposed coal-fired power plant in the province is facing stiff opposition from local communities, such as members of civil society and academe.
Palawan has long been considered the last frontier of the environment in the Philippines. It also holds two Unesco World Heritage Sites, namely, the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Marine Park and the Puerto Princesa Underground River.
Palawan is also one of the country’s most popular tourism hot spots.
“To build a coal plant in a place all Filipinos have worked so hard to conserve for so many years, when cheaper, cleaner alternatives are available, especially with the looming threat of climate change, is just a travesty,” Tan said.
On Monday Western Philippines University students organized a march to protest the proposed coal plant in the municipality of Aborlan in Palawan.
Lita Sopsop, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the Western Philippines University (WPU), estimated the number of people who participated at 1,500, composed of members from academe, civil society and locals in Aborlan.
Sopsop, who has a doctorate in Environmental Science at UP Los Baños, said the WPU’s mandate is clean energy, with the WPU declared as an Affiliated Non-Conventional Energy Center of the Department of Energy in Palawan.
The coal plant had originally been intended to be put up in the municipality of Narra, but local officials rejected the proposal.
The price of electricity for the proposed coal-fired power plant has also been questioned by non-governmental organizations in Palawan as the price will be much higher than digenous, cleaner renewable-energy projects.
Gerthie Mayo-Anda, executive director of the Environmental Legal Assistance Center and convener of the Palawan Alliance for Clean Energy, said the proposed coal plant would sell electricity at a rate of P9.38 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). With value-added tax, that rate would rise to P10.51/kWh.
A hydropower project being proposed in the province will produce electricity at a rate of P6.59/kWh, much lower than the fossil-fuel power plant.
According to WWF-Philippines, current pending hydropower projects in the region could save the Philippines an estimated P750 million a year from fossil-fuel costs and mitigate about 26,000 tons of carbon- dioxide emissions.
Renewable-energy projects also generate a greater number of jobs per megawatt compared to fossil-fuel plants. source
In Photo: Protesters march against the proposed coal plant in Aborlan, Palawan. (Chris Ng/WWF)
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