Ducky Paredes

” According to Arroyo, the bill aims to promote power generation facilities with renewable energy resources, including wind, solar, ocean, hydro, geothermal, and biomass energy.”

by Ducky Paredes

What we sorely need in this country is new thinking on energy and power sources. Clearly, one has to shift from importing the major part of our energy needs.  Thus, it is a breath of fresh air that the passage by the Lower House of the Renewable Energy Bill gives us. This is actually an old one which has not passed either house of congress for the last 24 years.
The bill whose counterpart measure in the Senate is expected soon, grants tax and other economic incentives to investors in clean energy. That it passed the House, is primarily through the work of House Energy Committee Chairman, Congressman Juan Miguel Arroyo of Pampanga.
The energy measure will, among other things, create a trust fund to finance the research, development and promotion of renewable energy projects. The Renewable Energy Act implements a National Renewable Energy Program through financing research, development and promotion of renewable energy systems, encouraging waste-to-energy technologies and providing incentives for renewable energy projects.
One might wonder how the President’s eldest child can be given such fulsome praise? Hasn’t he been the eternal mama’s boy who was never serious about being a lawmaker and only warmed his seat in the House?
That might have been the impression and, in fact that, his critics savaged Mikey when he was voted on as Energy Committee Chairman by pointing out that not only did he not have any real experience in anything, even his first term as congressman passed without achievements. Besides, what did Mikey know about such a complicated sectors as power and energy?
The energy measure will, among other things, create a trust fund to finance the research, development and promotion of renewable energy projects, is up for third reading in the Renewable Energy Act implements a National Renewable Energy Program through financing research, development and promotion of renewable energy systems, encouraging waste-to-energy technologies and providing incentives for renewable energy projects
Mikey seems bent on proving his critics wrong.
The Pampanga congressman’s House Bill 1958 or the proposed Renewable Energy Act of 2007 seeks to achieve self-reliance in the country’s energy requirements through the exploration, development, and utilization of renewable energy resources such as biomass, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and ocean energy sources or hybrid systems.
“If passed, the measure will also establish the institutional infrastructure and provide key government inputs to develop national and local government capabilities with renewable energy systems and encourage their widespread commercial and efficient use,” Arroyo said.
According to Arroyo, the bill aims to promote power generation facilities with renewable energy resources, including wind, solar, ocean, hydro, geothermal, and biomass energy whose facilities are capable of supplying electricity through the Main Grid or Transmission Systems under Republic Act 9136 or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.
“This is meant to reduce dependence on imported sources of fuel and assure development of facilities which utilize environment-friendly energy sources,” Arroyo said.
The National Geothermal Association of the Philippines is pushing for the passage of the renewable energy bill in the Senate, after its approval in the House of Representatives on June 11.
This will address the high cost of fossil fuel, ensure the energy security of the country, and mitigate the effects of climate change, they said.
Projections by the Department of Energy indicate that from 2010 to 2011, the country will again experience power shortages if new sources of energy are not developed, These makes this law that encourages us to find alternative energy sources such as hydro, wind, solar, ocean, biomass and geothermal extremely important.
The development of the country’s renewable energy, therefore, is not just important, but has become an absolute necessity, Geothermal plants, for instance, have less carbon emissions up to 5 to 8 times lower than other energy sources such as natural gas, oil and coal.
The development of more geothermal power plants should be aggressively pursued to lessen the country’s dependence on imported oil and promote better environment.
Can  Congressman Juan Miguel  Macapagal  Arroyo actually become as serious and as valuable a Congressman as his grandfather Diosdado Macapagal was when Cong Dadong  started his political career that eventually found him in Malacanang? Only time will tell. Cong Dadong was also a Pampaga congressman.
Imagine that the first Renewable Energy bill was filed in Congress 24 years ago, when Mikey was 16 years old, now, in Congress at 40, he has successfully done the job with great dispatch. But, Juan Miguel Macapagal Arroyo’s work is still not done.
While Mikey’s timely work on the Renewable Energy Bill as House Energy Committee Chairman seems to indicate that he is well on his way to becoming a major player in Congress, there is a lot more for the Congressional Energy Chairman to do. Next step are the much-needed amendments to the Epira Law which has been on Mikey’s table as Energy Chairman for sometime now.
Even as many investors in the power industry are dismayed that the Epira Law, the key legislation that brought them into this country and enlivened  their interests to invest in the power sector, should be the subject of early and possibly drastic revisions.
Still, our legislators, on seeing the Epira in actual operation, have found that it created major inequalities that affect power consumers and the power sector and which cause great disharmony. It is these things that must be set right so that the Epira Law will work better for all the stakeholders.
The House Committee Chairman must prove to investors and consumers alike that he can be trusted to make this happen and that he has the wisdom to find the necessary balance that would address the concerns of all the stakeholders.
Is Gloria’s first-born up to the challenge?

hvp 06.22.08)