by Myrna Velasco July
21, 2016
The Department of
Energy (DOE) is reiterating its intent to draw up an energy mix policy that
shall meet the country’s specific requirements, but the missing link is what
direction this administration would really want to pursue.
The department has
given pronouncement anew on this following President Rodrigo Duterte’s brickbat
against the Paris-drawn pact on climate change commitments of about 200
countries.
This administration has
been giving signs to energy sector players that it is an ‘unrepentant coal
technology supporter’; but balancing that fossil fuel addiction eventually is
the missing middle in their rhetorical bid for economically-beneficial fuel mix
policy.
Energy Secretary
Alfonso G. Cusi has just been giving general statement to the media that “we
will chart our own course in so far as energy is concerned to ensure energy
supply.”
He said this is in
consideration of the fact that “developing countries like the Philippines has
low carbon emissions.”
And since the country
is still on its path to industrialization, “we must use whatever energy
resources are available and affordable for power generation.”
What he has been
failing to expound on, however, is on ‘how subjective cheap energy is”, because
even gas technology-leaning Singapore has cheaper electricity than the
Philippines.
Additionally, some
countries with increased renewable energy grid integration could still offer
cheaper energy because they already veered away from punishing feed-in-tariff
subsidies – one that is yet absent in the Philippines.
The energy chief is not
also offering any option yet what technology option they are considering in
future energy planning once the country’s needs for baseload capacity would
already be addressed across grids.
Cusi just noted that
“while we signed the Paris agreement last year committing ourselves to limit
our carbon emissions, we cannot ignore the fact that our level of economic
development at this point does not allow us to rely completely on renewable
energy sources or clean energy.”
What he has been
missing on also is the fact that energy planning does not just delve with the
country’s need at present – but on to the next 30 to 50 years, which is the
very thrust of the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) of the
Philippines in the Paris climate change diplomacy.
The climate deal is not
just about meeting economic growths of individual countries, but for health and
environment preservation – one that even this administration just borrowed from
the next generation.
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