PhilStar 82, Stable nuclear power, expensive offshore wind

Stable nuclear power, expensive offshore wind

ENERGY, INFRA AND ECONOMICS - Bienvenido Oplas Jr. - The Philippine Star

February 26, 2026 | 12:00am

https://www.philstar.com/business/2026/02/26/2510426/stable-nuclear-power-expensive-offshore-wind

 

Two recent reports and issues caught my attention. One is the Department of Energy (DOE) simplifying the licensing of nuclear power project, the other is the P11/kWh green energy tariff (GET) of offshore wind. See these two reports in The Star: “Government to streamline nuclear project licensing” (Feb. 25), “ERC raises ceiling price for offshore wind auction” (Feb. 23).

 

Last Feb. 18, Meralco, through its generation arm Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN) received a grant of $2.8 million (P162 million) from the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) to support its efforts for a safe and responsible adoption of nuclear energy for long-term security. This will advance Meralco’s Nuclear Energy Strategic Transition (NEST) program.

 

MGEN will conduct a comprehensive small modular reactor (SMR) adoption study to start this year. MGEN president and CEO Manny Rubio should be very happy to have additional power supply in their portfolio, from thermal (coal, LNG) to solar and soon, nuclear.

 

Meralco chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said: “Through the good graces of the US government, we are laying the groundwork for responsible integration of nuclear into our overall fuel mix… It simply is right for the country to think nuclear… We look forward to the progress this collaboration will bring – a secure energy future we will build together.”

 

Last Feb. 20, I attended the DOST’s Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) “Nuclear Reactor Technology Assessment (RTA) Workshop: Engaging Stakeholders in Nuclear Technology Assessment for Deployment in the Philippines.” It was in collaboration with the Energy Engineering Program of the UP College of Engineering and held at Luxent Hotel, Quezon City.

 

There is a Nuclear Reactor Technology Assessment and Development, Component 3: RTA  (NuRad-RTA) Project which supports the Philippines’ ongoing efforts to evaluate and compare nuclear reactor technologies through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) RTA framework.

 

Dr. Caloy Arcilla, soon retiring as director of PNRI, made a good presentation and mentioned that there is SMR “overhype” as there are 150+ designs of SMR, but only two are operational, China’s HTGR (TRISO) and Russia’s Lemonosov PWR. Japan has one research reactor. And that there are “too many powerpoints, too few (nuclear) power plants.”

 

On the GET for offshore wind (OSW), the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) raised the ceiling price for the country’s first OSW auction from P10.386/kWh to P11/kWh. This will apply to 3,300 MW of OSW under Green Energy Auction (GEA) 5, for delivery from 2028-2030.

 

OSW is expensive and impractical. Too many logistical costs even before building it, like costs of port rental, land acquisition or rental, fishery compensation, huge ships rental, and so on.

 

Winning bidders will deliver power supply for 20 years, with GET or guaranteed price of P11/kWh beginning upon project commissioning and registration with the electricity spot market. Then consumers will endure additional expensive electricity via GEA-Allowance (GEA-All), on top of the existing feed in tariff allowance (FIT-All) also for intermittent RE like solar and wind.

 

I made a rough comparison of countries with high wind power generation and their inflation in Europe and Asia. The numbers below are for (a) wind generation in terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2014 and 2024, and (b) average inflation for 2013-2016 and 2022-2025.

 

Europeans have high wind generation and rising inflation. See the numbers:

 

Belgium: (a) 4.6 and 13.2 TWh, (b) 1.0 and 4.9 percent.

 

Denmark: (a) 13.1 and 20.6 TWh, (b) 0.3 and 3.8 percent.

 

Poland: (a) 7.7 and 25.9 TWh, (b) -0.1 and 8.3 percent.

 

Netherlands: (a) 5.8 and 33.4 TWh, (b) 0.8 and 5.6 percent.

 

Sweden: (a) 11.2 and 40.5 TWh, (b) 0.6 and 4.2 percent.

 

France: (a) 17.6 and 47.1 TWh, (b) 0.5 and 3.7 percent.

 

Spain: (a) 52.0 and 62.6 TWh, (b) 0.1 and 4.3 percent.

 

UK: (a) 32.0 and 84.1 TWh, (b) 1.2 and 5.6 percent.

 

Germany: (a) 58.5 and 138.9 TWh, (b) 0.9 and 4.8 percent.

 

Indonesia: (a) zero and 0.5 TWh, (b) 5.7 and 3.0 percent.

 

Malaysia: (a) zero or negligible for both years, (b) 2.4 and 2.3 percent.

 

Philippines: (a) 0.2 and 1.3 TWh, (b) 2.0 and 4.2 percent.

 

S. Korea: (a) 1.1 and 3.4 TWh, (b) 1.1 and 3.3 percent.

 

Taiwan: (a) 1.5 and 10.3 TWh, (b) 0.8 and 2.3 percent.

 

Vietnam: (a) 0.1 and 12.7 TWh, (b) 3.5 and 3.3 percent.

 

Sources: wind generation from the Energy Institute, Statistical Review of World Energy 2025; annual inflation from IMF, World Economic Outlook 2025; averages are author computations.

 

There. Many Europeans are on slow motion energy and economic suicide with ever-rising wind power and rising inflation. This should not happen because Europe is mostly industrialized and hence, have the capacity to mass produce, mass storage, mass transport various goods and commodities and thus, inflation should remain low. This is not happening.

 

Aside from expensive GET, OSW will also require higher capex from NGCP. Those OSW are far out, in far side of Mindoro, Palawan, Negros island, Guimaras, etc. This means higher transmission wheeling charge plus ancillary service by NGCP in our monthly electricity bill.

 

The Philippines has entered a new era of provoking more inflation with additional expensive energy source like OSW. The economic team should flag this creeping danger to our macroeconomic stability.

 

Meanwhile, I am happy that Aboitiz Power and North Negros Electric Coop that serves my hometown Cadiz City and neighboring towns and cities have inked a 30-MW baseload power supply, mostly from AP’s coal plant in Bataan. I stayed in Cadiz until high school, my folks are still there and they said that occasional blackout still occurs. I hope this additional baseload or 24/7 power supply will reduce the inconvenience of blackout and power fluctuation.

BWorld 852, On EO 108, the Office of the Executive Secretary, and sustained growth challenge

On EO 108, the Office of the Executive Secretary, and sustained growth challenge

February 19, 2026 | 12:02 am

My Cup Of Liberty

By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.

https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2026/02/19/731369/on-eo-108-the-office-of-the-executive-secretary-and-sustained-growth-challenge/

 

On Feb. 5, the Presidential Communications Office announced that President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. had issued Executive Order (EO) 108 that abolished the Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs (OSAPIEA) and transferred its powers, functions, and duties to the Office of the Executive Secretary.

 

The OSAPIEA was created in 2023 under EO 49 and it was headed by Secretary Frederick D. Go. Mr. Go was appointed Finance Secretary last November and he has more duties and powers there.

 

Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto, who was the former Finance Secretary, will now have more duties. Aside from overall monitoring and evaluation of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch, the OES will also streamline the Office of the President’s investment and economic affairs functions and promote comprehensive approaches to address current and future economic challenges.

 

SUSTAINING GROWTH

I checked the growth numbers of East Asia in contrast with those of Europe. I averaged the GDP growth rates into three-year clusters from 2011-2013, 2014-2016, etc. until the last three years. The results are contained in the accompanying table. The highlights are:

 

1. From 2011 to 2019, the Philippines’s trend was that of high growth along with Vietnam — we were the two fastest growing economies in the ASEAN-6 and just trailing China in the rest of East Asia.

 

2. Our draconian lockdown from 2020-2021 was horribly wrong. Vietnam and China, along with Taiwan, were able to grow in those years while the Philippines shrank by 9.5% in 2020, the worst in Asia, and the worst in Philippine economic history since post-WW2. Our average growth in 2020-2022 was only 1.3%.

 

3. We managed to grow above 5% in 2023-2024, but the infrastructure corruption scandal has dragged on 2025’s growth. Nonetheless our average of 5.2% growth in the 2023-2025 period was higher than the rest of the ASEAN-6 and other East Asian dragon economies. The detractors and pessimists are wrong in belittling our recent economic performance.

 

4. Degrowth is the trend in several European countries, particularly Germany and Austria, while Italy, France, and UK may fall into that trap soon.

 

Many European nations are focused on globalist agendas like saving the planet; saving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; saving Ukraine; and saving illegal immigrants. High growth, saving their jobs, businesses, and industrialization seem to have taken the back seat.

 

The main economic challenge for the Philippines is how to sustain an average GDP of 5-6%, if not attain 7% and not slip to 4% or lower. To help attain this, here are some Do’s and Don’ts that we should take note of.

 

1. There should be no more lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations regardless of how strong the globalist medical community and pharma lobby would be, should another big virus emerge.

 

2. We should not save the planet or save DEI, but rather save our jobs and businesses in order to save the hungry. The national agenda of promoting economic prosperity should not be subsumed under the globalist agenda of promoting ecological central planning.

 

3. We should follow the growth path, the economic and energy policies, of our East Asian neighbors and not that of Europe or North America. In 2025 all major East Asian nations grew above 3% except Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. This is an indicator that our region remains the most dynamic, the most prosperity-oriented in the world.

 

4. Finally, promoting the rule of law — that the law applies equally to unequal people and sectors, that no one is exempt and no one can grant an exemption — should be the single biggest function of governments.

 

In the “social contract” theory elaborated by the philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the main purpose government was invented was to secure people’s three basic rights — the right to life, the right to private property, and the right to liberty. There was no right to healthcare, right to education until university, right to monthly cash and food aid, and so on.

 

These new “rights” are modern inventions developed after societies progressed as a result of the protection of people’s three basic rights. These three basic rights made people very productive, very self-reliant, and not state- or welfare-dependent.

 

The infrastructure corruption scandal, the endless welfare-subsidy programs that lead to the endless expansion of our public debt, the ever-rising annual interest payments, and ever-rising taxes someday can be addressed if we have more rule of law.

 

The Office of the Executive Secretary, which is in charge of monitoring that all departments and agencies do their mandated tasks, and as head of overall investments and economic liberalization policies, has to meet high expectations from the public and from key investment actors. It has limited leeway given limited time, but it is working silently and efficiently to meet such expectations.

PhilStar 81, On the proposed NRA, VAT and income tax cut, travel tax abolition

On the proposed NRA, VAT and income tax cut, travel tax abolition

ENERGY, INFRA AND ECONOMICS - Bienvenido Oplas Jr. - The Philippine Star

February 19, 2026 | 12:00am

https://www.philstar.com/business/2026/02/19/2508888/proposed-nra-vat-and-income-tax-cut-travel-tax-abolition

Last Tuesday, Feb. 17, I attended the Pandesal Forum on the topic, “Taxes: What reforms do Filipinos actually need? Who really pays?” The three speakers were Mon Abrea, chief tax advisor of Asian Consulting Group (ACG), Cielo Magno-Gatmaytan, professor at the UP School of Economics (UPSE) and former Department of Finance undersecretary, and Ann Cuisia, founder and CEO of TraXion Tech and former IT consultant at the Office of the President.  Kamuning Bakery owner Wilson Flores was the moderator.

 

All three speakers are my friends. I met Mon in several tax fora more than a decade ago when I was still a “militant” tax cut and spending cut advocate. Cielo is a fellow alumna of UPSE and Ann is fellow member of the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH), the only strong organized group that fought lockdown dictatorship and mandatory vaccination in 2020-2022.

 

I will enumerate the five main advocacies of the three speakers and my comments with them.

 

1. Abolish the travel tax. Yes. This is taxation based on envy and fatten some useless bureaucracies. Filipinos should travel abroad more, widen their perspectives, befriend people abroad and in the process, encourage them to visit the Philippines too. The Philippines is the only country in the ASEAN, perhaps in all of East Asia, that imposes a travel tax, shameful.

 

2. Reduce VAT from 12 percent to 10 percent. Yes. Ann is considering eight percent, I support it too provided that all VAT exemptions are removed except raw agriculture, fishery and meat (kangkong, tilapia, chicken,…), carinderia food, and personal imported items for Filipinos arriving home. Main reason is the difficulty of implementation, the cost of enforcing it is much larger than the potential revenues. Also anti-poor to tax those kangkong and kamote.

 

3. Increase income tax exemption thresholds. Yes. Mon is proposing a P1 million annual personal income to be exempted from income tax. That is a realistic figure. The current P250,000 annual personal income exemption under the TRAIN Law of 2017 translates to only P19,200/month, small at current prices.

 

4. Adopt the OECD Global Minimum Tax of 15 percent for multinationals. Yes. Mon said the Philippines may have foregone over P50 billion annually by not implementing top-up taxes on large multinational enterprises.

 

5. Establish a National Revenue Authority (NRA). The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs (BOC) will be abolished, merged and integrated into the NRA, a government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC).

 

Yes, I agree. Salaries of personnel in GOCCs like LBP, DBP, SSS, GSIS are exempted from the government salary standardization, higher than standard rates. Same officials of BIR and BOC may possibly assume leadership of the NRA. Cielo added that the idea of NRA has been floated since 2001 or 25 years ago, it is not a new idea but never took off, it must be taken up today.

 

Other tax issues that came up during the open forum and my comments on them.

 

6. Abolition of all exemptions from VAT except few items mentioned above. I raised this during the open forum and Mon quickly agreed. I specifically mentioned exemptions from VAT by purchases of senior citizens, persons with disability (PWD), and sales of renewable energy (RE).

 

The rule of law means that the law applies equally to unequal people and sectors, no one is exempted and no one can grant an exemption. So a VAT law should apply to all except a few items. Medicines, RE, private schools and universities, private hospitals, purchases by senior citizens and PWDs, others should be slapped with VAT at lower rate. Their exemption means huge tax leakage. Moves to exempt electricity, medicines, water from VAT are wrong and parochial.

 

7. Digital tax and blockchain. Ann said that every peso transaction should be traceable from contract to receipt. Require all government suppliers to issue e-invoices that match purchase orders and payments, and publish contract-to-payment data for public audit. Use digital identity to reduce leakages in social transfers. I agree with her.

 

8. Targeted tax audit, risk-based and not arbitrary. Mon and Ann mentioned this, that focus and enforcement should be on the largest risk clusters, where data mismatches are highest, not on compliant SMEs. I agree with them.

 

9. Higher sin tax especially tobacco products. Cielo quickly supported this arguing that smoking incidence is rising again so tobacco, vape tax should rise. I disagree with her. The main reason why smoking incidence is rising again is because smokers shifted from legal to illegal, smuggled tobacco which are very cheap as taxes on legal tobacco keeps rising.

 

See the numbers: tax rate in 2021 was P50/pack, tobacco tax collection was P176.5 billion; P55/pack in 2022 and revenues declined to P160.3 billion; P60/pack in 2023 and revenues further declined to P134.9 billion; P63/pack in 2024 and revenues even declined to P134.4 billion.

 

This trend is similar to our VAT rate of 12 percent, the highest in the ASEAN and we have the lowest collection efficiency of only 35 to 40 percent. Vietnam and Singapore have only eight percent VAT/GST and they have 70 to 71 percent collection efficiency.

 

Also similar to our income collections: 83 percent of total personal income tax revenues come from compensation earners or the average employees and personnel, 12.5 percent from single proprietorships, 4.3 percent from professionals.

 

10. Three lessons: (a) the higher the personal income tax, the lower the tax compliance of non-fixed income earners like professionals (lawyers, doctors, showbiz, consultants); (b) the higher the VAT rate, the lower the collection efficiency; (c) the higher the tobacco tax rate, the lower the tobacco tax collections. 

BWorld 851, On ASEAN energy, Terra Solar, and PEPIF 2026

On ASEAN energy, Terra Solar, and PEPIF 2026

February 17, 2026 | 12:02 am

My Cup Of Liberty

By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.

https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2026/02/17/730857/on-asean-energy-terra-solar-and-pepif-2026/

 

Sustaining our high growth has become elusive for the Philippines recently. Our average GDP growth of 6.3% a year in 2022 to 2024 slowed down to 4.4% in 2025, largely due to soured investments and lower construction activities as results of the ongoing infrastructure corruption scandal.

 

While the governance and political aspects of the corruption issue are being addressed, the energy infrastructure aspect must also be addressed because when many big investments start coming in, they should not be met by blackouts (as I like to refer to then, Earth Hours) necessitating that they buy big and expensive gensets.

 

I computed the power generation per capita of the ASEAN-6 countries and our four industrialized East Asian neighbors in 2006 or 20 years ago, and 2024, which had the latest comparative data available. In 2024, the Philippines had the lowest generation of only 1,148 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per capita. Thailand had twice that number, Vietnam nearly triple, Malaysia nearly six times, Singapore nearly nine times, and South Korea and Taiwan had 10 to 11 times the power generation of the Philippines.

 

The main driver of the high levels of power generation of our neighbors is their high coal use. In 2024, our coal generation was only 701 kWh per capita. Vietnam had twice that number, Malaysia four times, China six times, and Taiwan nearly seven times that of the Philippines (see Table 1).

 

I also computed the Coal/Total generation or (C/T) ratio of these countries, then their average GDP growth over the past two decades. In 2024, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam had C/T ratios of 46% to 61%. Thailand and Singapore are LNG users and their Gas/Total generation ratio was 68% and about 98%, respectively.

 

Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan had lower C/T ratios of only 30% to 39% in 2024 while China had 58%.

 

One notable thing is that five countries with high C/T ratios of 46% and above also had a high average GDP growth of 3.9% to 6.1% from 2016 to 2024. Meanwhile, countries with C/T ratios of 39% and below, or which were more of LNG users, had lower average growth of 0.4% to 3.3%. These were Thailand, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (see Table 2).

 

MTERRA SOLAR ENERGIZATION

Last week, on Feb. 12, Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN), through its affiliate Terra Solar Philippines, Inc. (MTerra Solar), inaugurated The First Spark: MTerra Solar Phase 1 Initial Grid Synchronization and Energization in Gapan, Nueva Ecija. Phase 1 is huge — 1,288 megawatts-direct current (MWdc) of installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity as of end-January 2026, with 622 battery energy storage system (BESS) units already installed.

 

Energy Secretary Sharon S. Garin noted that developments of this scale are “essential to supporting the Philippines’ long-term energy security… This power plant alone — once completed — will be producing power for 10% of Luzon.”

 

MGEN President and CEO Emmanuel V. Rubio emphasized that “MTerra Solar proves the Philippines can build big — and build fast. Today’s energization is not the finish line; it is the start of a bigger journey that will expand our capacity, broaden our impact, and demonstrate that the Philippines can lead in delivering renewable energy at scale.”

 

National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) Head of Transmission Planning Redi Allan Remoroza emphasized that “As the system operator and transmission network provider, NGCP recognizes today’s energization as a key infrastructure readiness milestone.”

 

PEPIF 2026

The Philippine Electric Power Industry Forum (PEPIF) 2026, organized by the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), will be held on March 12 at the John Hay Convention Center in Baguio City. Key speakers include the provincial Governor of Benguet, the Energy Secretary and Undersecretaries, the ERC Chairperson, the ADB lead for energy, and major corporate players including the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association and the SN Aboitiz Power Group.

 

A big panel discussion in the afternoon is focused on the theme, “The Energy Trilemma in the Philippines: Pathways to Security, Sustainability and Equity.” The six panel speakers will be Energy Undersecretaries Mylene Capongcol and Mario Marasigan, Energy Regulatory Commission Director Sharon Montaner, PIPPA Chairman Roman Miguel de Jesus, Ateneo Economics Professor Fernando Aldaba, and the NGCP’s Redi Allan Remoroza.

 

I will be the moderator of this panel of high-caliber speakers. My task is to steer the discussion to focus on the theme and not deviate from it, and bring out the best insights from the speakers so I will speak less and let the panelists speak more, setting aside my hat as an opinion writer.

 

The IEMOP has sent invitations to all key energy players in the country. This looks like another exciting, stimulating activity for the Philippines’ energy sector.