Amid the high and increasing energy rates, our people are hoping that the Marcos administration will make good on its promise to ensure an ample energy supply in the coming months and years as it vows to provide cheap and reliable energy through the promotion and utilization of renewable energy (RE) sources in the country.
In the administration’s year-end report, Malacanang said the Department of Energy’s (DoE) major plans for 2023 include updating the Philippine Energy Plan, pursuing contingency measures and activities to ensure energy supply during critical periods, and pushing for the continued development of alternative fuel and improving access to electricity.
It can be recalled that in his first State of the Nation Address in July, Marcos cited it as a “key sector” in the administration’s push for economic growth and increased employment. He said the country is searching for new power sources while improving the energy supply mix between traditional and renewable sources.
The DoE, in collaboration with the Energy Regulatory Commission, is set to develop policy and framework for new and emerging RE technologies. “These include offshore wind, waste-to-energy, expanded rooftop solar program, as well as ocean and tidal stream energy,” the Palace said.
Hence, the Marcos administration has increased investments in RE projects to meet the target of a 35 percent share in the country’s power generation mix by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040. From July 1 to Dec. 14, 2022, the Palace said the DoE has awarded 41 RE service contracts with a potential capacity of 9.2 gigawatts (GW). Of this number, around 6.2 GW of equivalent capacity will come from offshore wind service contracts.
These, indeed, are good news to reckon with among energy consumers whose bills have had constantly-increasing amounts payable to local electric cooperatives. These are yet promises at the moment, but we hope to have them realized soon.
Economic meltdown
Many of my friends and colleagues who are now working in the United States keep on boasting about where they are now and what they have become, as though they are now in heaven. Some of them are enticing me to go there as though it is the best place to be.
But I am not at all impressed. I know a lot about Bible prophecies that, today, things are running from bad to worse, even in the US.
Yes, economic conditions just keep getting worse. Now that we have entered 2023, we find ourselves in high-inflation environments while economic activity is gradually slowing down. Just like in 2008, employers are conducting mass layoffs as a horrifying housing crash sweeps across that nation.
In the online magazine, Prophecy News Watch, we can read the following 15 recent facts that prove a massive economic meltdown is already happening right now:
1. Home sales have now fallen for 10 consecutive months.
2. Existing home sales are down 35.4 percent over the last 12 months, the largest year-over-year decline in existing home sales since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
3. Homebuilder sentiment has now dropped for 12 consecutive months.
4. Home construction costs have risen more than 30 percent since the beginning of 2022.
5. The number of single-family housing unit permits has fallen for nine months in a row.
6. The Empire State Manufacturing Index has plunged “to a reading of negative 11.2 in December”.
7. In November, Americans witnessed the largest decline in retail sales that they have seen all year long.
8. Even the biggest names on Wall Street are starting to let workers go.
9. The Federal Reserve is admitting that the number of actual jobs in the United States has been overstated by over a million.
10. U.S. job cuts were 417 percent higher in November than they were during the same month a year ago.
11. A recent Wall Street Journal survey found that approximately two-thirds of all Americans expect the economy to get even worse next year.
12. A newly released Bloomberg survey covered that 70 percent of U.S. economists believe a recession is coming in 2023.
13. Inflation continues to spiral wildly out of control.
14. Overall, vegetable prices in the United States are more than 80 percent higher than they were at this same time last year.
15. Thanks to the rapidly rising cost of living, 63 percent of the U.S. population is now living paycheck to paycheck.
We may not understand all of these, but to desperately get inflation under control, the Federal Reserve has been dramatically increasing interest rates, causing the housing market to crash, but Fed officials insist that such short-term pain is necessary to tame inflation.
Given all this, I am not attracted to this Filipino dreamland anymore. The US is now too different from what it used to be. These countrymen who are boasting of their new-found social and economic status in this country are perhaps not reading news updates about what’s going on there, economically that is.