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It is
now becoming clear what inspired the harebrained notion
of a P75-billion “economic stimulus” package.
On
Tuesday the government announced that last year the
Philippine economy posted a growth rate of 7.3
percent—the biggest GDP expansion in 31 years. Hurrah!
Meanwhile, the sale of state assets—notably
geothermal-power producer Energy Development Corp.—has
trimmed the budgetary deficit to a record low. Yehey! As
if that were not enough, our compatriots toiling
overseas have been sending home an unprecedented level
of remittances. Wowwowee!
All the
positive economic news has evidently got the Arroyo
administration giddy in anticipation of copious
resources now at the government’s disposal. What to do
with the windfall? Why not a multibillion-peso dole,
which Albay Gov. Joey Salceda’s stimulus package really
is, that would benefit the Palace’s political allies
besides?
Malacańang probably feels like a squatter who wagered
his last P20 bill in a megalotto ticket and woke up to
learn that he won the jackpot. And like the
pauper-turned-multimillionaire, it does not know what to
do now that it is awash with cash.
Like the
lottery winner, the government—along with the rest of
the country—risks experiencing a
rags-to-a-bit-of-riches-back-to-rags tragedy if it fails
to husband its newly acquired resources wisely. The
greater fortune in the economic turnaround is the
opportunity it gives the country to finally make the
investments that would secure and grow its newfound
fortune.
Instead
of squandering surplus funds via Salceda’s shortsighted
handout, the money could be used to build the
infrastructure and construct the facilities that would
finally make the
Philippines
energy independent. From energy, after all, all wealth
springs.
For
instance, this week’s Energy Summit did not deteriorate
into the gabfest that we had earlier feared. Presided
over by Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, the forum somehow
helped focus national attention on renewable energy
sources. An RE advocate, Catherine Maceda, projected
that renewable energy would help the country save as
much as $3.6 billion—that otherwise would go to the
importation of expensive and filthy fossil fuels, which
are beginning to run in short supply besides.
As a
windswept archipelago right smack in the Pacific Ring of
Fire, the Philippines is ideally situated to harness
such energy sources as solar, wind, geothermal and even
the constantly undulating waves of the seas all around
us. Moreover, we already have substantial experience in
tapping RE.
We are
now a leading producer of geothermal power, thanks to
the steamfields in Laguna, Bicol, Leyte, Negros and
Maguindanao that generate some 16 percent of our
electricity requirements. We could, in fact, tap more
geothermal power if only the state-owned National Power
Corp. would use more of it instead of the electricity
generated by the oil and coal-fired plants of its
independent power producers that have been gouging
commercial and residential electricity consumers since
the Ramos administration gave them the license to do so.
By the
way, contracts to purchase oil and coal to run Napocor
plants amount to billions of pesos annually—which some
unscrupulous quarters would rather not alter, much less
rescind, lest the spigots of kickbacks suddenly run dry.
But that’s another story—or is it?
Part of
the resistance to renewable energy resides in those
nooks and crannies of the bureaucracy, which have been
raking the usual “SOP” from the suppliers of imported
fuel. A drastic shift in our energy mix would wreak
havoc on the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to all
these years, nay, decades.
Then
there are the fiscal conservatives who habitually see
dark clouds in the silver lining. Adopting RE will
certainly require a radical shift that might not make
short-term economic sense. But if the bean-counters had
their way the government would probably not have sunk a
single centavo in, say, the sprawling geothermal
production field in Tongonan, Leyte.
It had
to take visionaries like the late former Energy Minister
Geronimo Velasco and other pioneers to press ahead with
the project, which now generates reasonably priced and
reliable power via submarine cable to the Visayas and
parts of Luzon. Were it not for the electricity from
Tongonan, for instance, the
Cebu boom would never have materialized.
Comes
now the opportunity to venture into wind power, which
has begun to make good on its promise in Ilocos Norte
through the Northwind project. Numerous other sites
across the archipelago have been identified for their
excellent wind power potentials.
Moreover, wind-power technology has now graduated to the
out-of-the-box stage. The equipment needed to generate
electricity from wind is readily available—all you have
to do is Google-search it. That wind is now a viable
alternative energy resource is evident in the many
windmill farms in Europe and the United States.
Now that
the Energy Summit is over, the question remains: What is
to be done?
Eighteen
bills aiming to adopt renewable energy as state policy
are pending in the House and Senate. Although identified
as priority measures, some key lawmakers seem to be more
concerned with other, irrelevant matters.
For
instance, Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo, the House
energy committee chairman and the President’s son, seems
more determined to amend the Electric Power Industry
Reform Act—notwithstanding objections from stakeholders
in the energy sector—and more preoccupied with unseating
Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. than to shepherd the RE bill
through the legislative mill.
The
focus of a visionary Congressman Arroyo obviously lacks,
which is a crying shame. For never before in our history
than now has the opportunity to make a long-lasting
investment in our energy future presented itself.
Thanks
to political distractions, that opportunity may pass—and
never come again. |
