AS I write this piece, a most welcome development is in the works in Negros Occidental -- a Renewable Energy Council for our province, the plan for which was announced by Governor Lacson last February, is set to function starting this month. Along with a Technical Working Group whose expertise will inform its directions and decisions, the Council will help build a renewable energy development roadmap towards aligning to the low-carbon transition required by the worsening climate crisis, and securing clean and affordable energy to power our people’s needs.
The role that communities, civic movements, and many of our faithful played in bringing this milestone about is undeniable. We are no stranger to the history of resistance against destructive energy that our people made together. For two decades, Negrosanons took down five proposed coal-fired power plants in various towns with a unity strengthened by their genuine care for nature and the future of generations to come. Thanks to this, we presently enjoy Negros Island’s status as the Philippines’ renewable energy capital, with its existing generation facilities producing power from nearly 100-percent renewable sources. Unfortunately, Negrosanons do not necessarily benefit from the bounty of clean power nature so generously provides, as much of the electricity we use is actually sourced from coal and other fossil fuel power plants from outside the island. It saddens me, and surely also all our readers true in the hope to be stewards of Creation, that we had a part in coal’s dirty impacts even with just our use of electricity.
But there is no better time to uphold Negrosanons' legacy of coal resistance than today, including in terms of the energy source our electricity comes from. We among groups of clean energy advocates and concerned citizens have recently been made aware that several power supply contracts in some of our electric cooperatives (EC) with coal power plants outside Negros are expiring. This means that renewable energy now has the opportunity to bid and take the place previously occupied by coal. It must be noted that there are concerning matters in the ongoing bidding process for new contracts, including the lack of transparency of the Negros Electric Cooperative Association and unfavorable terms used by Ceneco -- this, dear readers, is something on which we should have more conversations moving forward. In the meantime, we are now actively urging our electricity providers to listen to the cry of the Earth and reject renewed dependence on destructive power.
Similar floodgates for the advancement of renewables are being opened in Negros Oriental, with a Renewable Energy Code expected to come to reality soon thanks to the leadership of Governor Roel Degamo and the Negros Oriental Provincial Board.
We do not forget that we are still amid a global catastrophe in the form of Covid-19. We do not forget that Negros remains a hotspot of unjust killings as impunity continues to blanket our country with darkness. We, too, are very much aware that the climate crisis worsens day by day. But these steps toward sustainably transforming the way we power our lives spark hope that we indeed can still work together towards the healing of our beautiful planet.
I turn once more to a well-loved passage in Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, one that has repeatedly served as a source of encouragement in facing the struggles of our time -- “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.” Readers, may we take on this challenge together!