DEAREST readers, how are you faring these days? I am glad to write to you again to wish you safety and good health and to pray that the lamp of hope in your hearts would continue burning.
It has been days since President Duterte's fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona). Of course, not one Filipino needed to listen to the Sona simply to find out what state our country is in--we already experience the dire situation brought by the pandemic in our daily lives. The crisis manifests itself in varying ways--from forced solitude to unemployment, from exacerbated poverty to heightened repression and environmental aggression, and from terrible work conditions for frontliners to, perhaps worst of all, the loss of our very lives or loved ones. With these characterizing the present, many could only imagine a dim future.
We thus awaited Sona 2020 with bated breaths, hoping to get a glimpse of what the government has in mind to help the people bounce back from this crisis. Clean energy advocates, including us from the Diocese of San Carlos, in particular, waited to hear about what is next for the development of renewable energy sources and reduction of the Philippines' dependence on coal. Last year, the president had issued marching orders urging the Department of Energy to fast-track these two. With how renewable energy proved itself resilient amid the coronavirus crisis globally and with how experts had been expressing confidence that its development can help countries recover economically, we had hoped for a more ambitious reaffirmation of the 2019 Sona pronouncement.
To say we are disappointed is an understatement. While the president stated that solar energy will be developed to provide electricity to schools unreached by the grid, nothing was said on what would be done to radically raise the share renewables occupy in our mix as the present health, economic and climate crises require. He also made no effort to clarify a statement delivered a few weeks back in Jolo, Sulu regarding the plan to import more coal as we reopen our borders to trade, even saying that coal would stay for the next thirty years.
This is problematic. Back in 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that we had roughly 12 years left to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent more catastrophic climate change. The use of coal, the dirtiest of all fuels, has to be reduced by 78 percent globally by 2030. Climate-change vulnerable Philippines sadly seems to be deaf to these findings because as of today, we have at least 21 coal-fired power plants in the pipeline in addition to the already existing 28. Another pronouncement to address the proliferation of coal followed by executive order would have been a long-overdue but crucial development. Sadly, no such thing happened, and days later we were instead surprised with the news that an Executive Order was issued by the president for the development instead of another detrimental power source--nuclear.
One may ask why we need to talk about renewable energy during a pandemic. Some may view it as an irrelevant issue. The development of renewables to replace coal and other fossil fuels, however, is not only a climate imperative, but a means to aid the people's recovery from the current economic and health crises, and pave the path for a better "new normal." Renewables, especially in the form of microgrids, can provide electricity to communities in any terrain to address the problem of electrification, which was highlighted again due to the need for distance learning mechanisms while physical gatherings are implausible and can provide much-needed jobs in cities through manufacturing, operation and maintenance of renewable energy equipment and facilities. Renewables would also yield cheaper and cleaner electricity while freeing us from the problems of pollution and unreliability encountered with coal and other fossil fuels. In other words, renewables enable us to care for both our people and our common home.
This year's Sona has come and gone but even beyond it, I enjoin you to be one with all groups pushing for our transition to clean energy and an end to coal and fossil fuels that harm the planet while making our people suffer. When the energy that can power our people's recovery in the here and now and fuel our hope for a better future is available to us, there is no reason we should not tap it.