PRESIDENT Duterte issued last June Executive Order No. 30 creating the Energy Investment Coordinating Council (EICC) in line with his goal of expediting and streamlining the implementation of major energy projects. The new council lost no time in carrying out its work and the Department of Energy issued certificates of Energy Project of National Significance (EPNS) to Atimonan One Energy (A1E) and a number of other power projects on Sept. 11.
The new power projects are especially important in view of the “Build, Build, Build” program of the administration. The new infrastructures – roads and bridges, national buildings, airports and seaports, etc. – will need a great deal of power during their construction and upon their operation.
Aside from the megawatts that the new power plants will bring to the country as a whole, they will benefit their local communities, including providing jobs for local residents. In Atimonan, the president of the Municipal Agriculture and Fisheries Council, Demosthenes Hernandez, led a rally of fishermen, farmers, laborers, residents, and barangay officials to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to voice their support for A1E’s 1,200-megawatt power plant.
Aside from the Atimonan plant, the Department of Energy headed by Secretary Alfonso Cusi also granted certificates of Energy Project of National Significance (EPNS) to a wind power project on Talim Island in Binangonan and Cardona, Rizal; and a geothermal project in Kalinga province.
Projects that qualify as being of national significance have capital investment of at least R3.5 billion, have complex technical processes and engineering designs, and will make significant contributions to economic development.
The swift action taken by the EICC on the proposed new power plants indicate the urgency of the government’s need for a great deal of power for its massive trillion-peso infrastructure program which has already begun in some parts of the country. With the declaration of their status as projects of national significance, there should no further delay in the grant of a final approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
