BWorld 810, Monsoon rains, a climate-related budget, and coal energy

Monsoon rains, a climate-related budget, and coal energy

July 24, 2025 | 12:02 am

My Cup Of Liberty

By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.

https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2025/07/24/687091/monsoon-rains-a-climate-related-budget-and-coal-energy/

 

The ongoing southwest monsoon or habagat has resulted in a “classless society” — there have been no classes from the elementary level to college for several days now due to the almost nonstop rains (with or without a typhoon). Floods have become a normal sight in many areas of Metro Manila and cities in the provinces. Questions about government “flood control projects” have resurfaced, naturally.

 

Last week, on July 15, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) got approval from President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and the Cabinet for the FY 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) that it had prepared. The proposed P6.793-trillion budget is equivalent to 22% of the projected GDP for 2026 and higher by 7.4% from this year’s P6.326-trillion budget.

 

DBM Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said in a press statement that “The President himself sat down with the different agencies to ensure that all our priorities are aligned towards our common goal of achieving our vision of a Bagong Pilipinas.”

 

One notable thing about next year’s budget is that the combined budget request of all agencies, as of last April, had reached P10.101 trillion. I think it is a horrible desire by many agencies to spend-spend-spend with little or no regard for where the funding will come from.

 

Government spending on climate-related programs and projects, like flood control, is rising. From P127 billion in 2015 and P137 billion in 2016, this jumped to P569 billion in 2023. The bulk of spending went to the Department of Public Works and Highways (see Table 1).

 

One problem in the Philippines and in many other countries is that whatever the climate or weather — whether there is less rain or more rain, fewer floods or more floods, it is less cold or more cold — these are all taken as “proof” of “man-made climate change” and hence need man-made “solutions.” Meaning that the government, the UN, and multilaterals offer solutions like more climate spending, more climate bureaucracies, and huge meetings.

 

Among such “solutions” is the long-term shut down of coal plants, especially in smaller countries like the Philippines that can be easily bullied by the multilaterals and big media. For instance, in a report published here in BusinessWorld, “Philippines set for first coal power decline in 17 years amid rising LNG use” (July 22), Reuters explicitly mentioned a “coal phase-out policy.”

 

Why do they target the Philippines, or sometimes Indonesia and Vietnam, for their anti-coal agenda when other countries have much, much bigger coal consumption than us? In 2024, the Philippines’ coal generation was 79 terawatt-hours (TWh) while China, India, the US, and Japan have generated 5,828, 1,518, 712, and 301 TWh respectively.

 

The rising use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers means even larger power demand as AI is very energy intensive. In 2024, the expansion in power generation was twice or even thrice the average yearly power generation from 2014-2023. The Philippines, for instance, had an average of only 4.7 TWh a year from 2014-2023, but had a 10 TWh increase in 2023 and 2024.

 

It is notable, too, that countries that have expanded their coal use considerably have also seen a big expansion in overall power generation and high average GDP growth over the last 10 years. Examples are China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Turkey.

 

And countries with big declines in coal use also have seen slow expansion in total power generation and low average GDP growth. Examples are Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, and the UK (see Table 2).

 

We should address rising rivers and creeks, not rising oceans. We should spend public resources on regular, annual dredging of those rivers and creeks to reduce flooding, not on climate meetings and bureaucracies. We should focus on net growth and not net zero. We should focus on developing abundant and stable electricity sources available 24/7, not unstable, intermittent, weather- and battery-dependent energy sources.

 

Horrible monsoon rains are annual events, with a minimum five days straight during which the sun is hardly visible. We should have electricity available even if the sun is not shining for days, even if the wind is not blowing for days.