Being a person with an interest in the Philippines energy sector and in particular in Palawan, I attended a climate change event put up by the Palawan Chamber of Commerce on Saturday. There was quite some passion in the room, particularly in relation to the electricity cooperatives’ having contracted in a 15 megawatt coal-fired power plant—not really a very sensitive addition to Palawan’s pristine ecological environment, you might think. Even less so when small hydro has been proven to be available since about three or four years ago at 60 percent the cost of coal, or less than half the cost of the diesel power which is used there exclusively.
But if the consumers of electricity in the Philippines are willing to pay an additional P300-400 million per year for the “privilege” of blackening Palawan with the use of fossil fuel, then presumably it is not a cause for concern! I should be absolutely clear that I am not happy to pay my share of the P300-400 million extra cost, but perhaps I don’t see things in quite the same way as everybody else. It also seems rather odd that a rural electricity cooperative has the ability to commit all the electricity consumers of the Philippines to several hundred million pesos of additional costs. This is just about as crackpot as awarding toll road concessions to the highest bidder — in other words, the one who is then going to charge users the highest tolls in order to afford the bid payments to government!!