Fast-tracked

We have not had brownouts for quite a while. But that doesn’t mean we should be complacent with the country’s energy situation.

Between today and 2040, Meralco Powergen president Rogelio Singson estimates we will need 43,765 MW of additional power generation capacity to meet the needs of our rapidly growing economy. In order to achieve that goal, he says, we need to install about 600 MW of new generating capacity every year.

We might probably need to install more than that. Singson points out that much of our existing baseload capacity is rapidly ageing. Most of our existing baseload plants are at least 15 years old.  Many of them are well over 20 years old.

With our slim reserves, coupled with the uncertainty of natural gas supplies after the Malampaya field is exhausted, a major baseload plant conking out could spell a bout with power rationing. We know from our experience during the Cory years how devastating that could be for the domestic economy.

It is not easy to build a new power plant. The process, considering the long permitting procedures, could take up to seven years. The faster our economy grows, the closer we move to using up what remains of our power reserves.

The administration recognizes we are in a tight race to ensure energy sufficiency. On June 30, 2017, President Duterte issued Executive Order 30 establishing the Energy Investment Coordinating Council (EICC).

The EICC is composed of representatives from various national agencies and relevant energy institutions. Among them are: the DENR, the DOF, the DOJ, the DOTr, NEA, NGCP, Napocor, the National Transmission Corp., the HLURB, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development and others. The idea is for these agencies to work together on applications for new generating plants in order to speed up the process and harmonize our energy policies. This council should work to fast-track what are called Energy Projects of National Significance.

Only lately was the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) added to the agencies represented in the coordinating council. It should have been there from the start, considering the ERC comprises the critical last leg of the permitting process in building new generating capacity.

The inclusion of the ERC completes the cast of agencies responsible for hastening the construction of new generating capacity. That should complete the streamlining of the permitting process.

With the fuller membership of the EICC, stakeholders in the energy sector are now expecting faster movement in the construction of new generating capacity. Not everyone was happy with the tedious, complicated and slow process we had in the past notwithstanding the urgency of supplying our growing power needs.

ROTC

Not everyone might be pleased with President Duterte’s directive to restore reserve officer training in our schools even if this is a constitutional dictate. This could be because our idea of ROTC training from the days we were students has not been very encouraging.

As an ROTC cadet in college, I always thought the requirement was both useless and oppressive. We marched around with wooden rifles for hours, an exercise that hardly prepared us to do anything relevant when the country needed us.

Marching in formation made us look like a unit in one of Napoleon’s infantry regiments --- an obsolete notion of war. Generals, it is said, always prepare for the last war, not the next one. That was why the useless Maginot Line (and, in our case, Corregidor) was built up at great expense. Invading armies ignored both. The German panzers swept across Belgium and the Japanese Imperial Army landed in Lingayen.

Fortunately, the renewed call to restore ROTC training occasioned some hard thinking among groups that should know. The UP Vanguard, Inc. presented a position paper before the Senate proposing an alternative to existing law and to the various bills submitted reviving mandatory military training programs for our youth.

The Vanguard position paper proposes passage of a Citizens Service Act that strikes a middle position between the old ROTC law and the current National Service Training Program that makes participation entirely optional. The proposal here is for a mandatory Citizen Service Training Course (CSTC) at the tertiary educational level. The course will train students in the following areas: a) external and territorial defense; b) internal security and peace and order; and, c) disaster risk reduction and management.

A Department of Citizen Service Training will be established in all tertiary schools. Graduates of the CSTC will be organized into a Citizen Service Corps. They will all be issued serial numbers for use in the event of deployment. In the event of national emergencies, the Corps may be called upon by national and local governments for assistance. The country will benefit from having a ready corps of trained and disciplined men and women to supplement the standing army.

The proposal includes the establishment of a Citizen Service Mobilization Commission tasked with maintaining the roster of the Corps, supervising advanced training and overseeing deployment in the event this in called for. The entire undertaking will be civilian in character to forestall criticism the program will result in militarization.

The Commission, for its part, is expected to provide guidelines to prevent a repeat of the ROTC abuses in the past. These abuses included hazing, sexual harassment and corruption.

This should be a good time to widely discuss a proposal for a citizen service program. The old ROTC was useless. The National Service Training Program is ineffectual. We have no mechanism in place for mobilizing the youth in the service of the nation.