PMCJ To Meralco: No More Room for Exemptions; Time for Accountability

Media Communications
Apr 21
4 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

The Power for People Coalition (P4P), along with Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, Center for Energy, Ecology and Development, and other groups, held a protest at the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) Head Office in Pasig, April 22.

Quezon City, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) revoked its confirmation of exemption for the 1,200-megawatt (MW) coal project in Atimonan, Quezon. It confirmed that the project’s Acknowledgement of Non-Coverage from the 2020 coal moratorium has been recalled for further review. This followed a statement by MGen President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel Rubio that they have confirmation of MGen’s moratorium exemption in its Atimonan, Quezon and Toledo, Cebu coal projects.

According to Ian Rivera, National Coordinator of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), these projects should not be exempted from the coal moratorium as doing so undermines the very principle of why the moratorium exists.

“The 2020 moratorium covers ‘greenfield’ coal plants, which only excludes existing coal plants with firm expansion plans, approved permits from LGU and local environmental boards, and ‘committed’ projects. None of these exemptions should apply to the planned Atimonan Power Station,” Rivera added.

In 2021, Meralco abandoned plans of constructing a coal-fired power plant in Subic, Zambales, announcing that it is moving away from coal. This is considered as the first pressure point for Meralco to cancel its proposed plants in Quezon because a top bank executive said they pulled out funding for Subic and Atimonan.

The planned coal project was earlier repurposed into a fossil gas plant that uses liquefied natural gas (LNG) instead of coal. When this did not work out, MGen reverted its plans to coal and has been waiting for the Acknowledgement of Non-Coverage of the moratorium ever since.

In late September 2024, the DOE's newest document of committed power projects in Luzon listed the proposal under "natural gas," with "request to revert back the technology of the project to coal."

Atimonan residents have long resisted the planned coal project, staging protest actions and filing complaints over the environmental and construction violations of Atimonan One Energy (A1E), an MGen subsidiary and the coal company responsible for the project. In 2022, PMCJ, Kabataan para sa Kalikasan ng Atimonan (KAPAKANAN), and other allied organizations filed a case against A1E in the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court about the planned coal plant. A letter of opposition was also filed in 2023 when A1E planned to build an LNG plant in place of the coal plant.

“We remain firm in our opposition to the Atimonan coal project, which has burdened our communities for a decade. We reject any so-called ‘transition’ projects that lock us into a dirty energy state under the guise of ‘cleaner’ technologies. The shift to ammonia or gas is nothing but a false solution that cannot justify the ongoing destruction of ecosystems and the threats to people’s health and livelihoods. We call for a genuine shift to renewable energy—not another delay masked as transition,” said Father Warren Puno, Convenor of Quezon for Environment (QUEEN).

“These coal projects exacerbate the climate crisis, and they also directly destroy the communities they invade. The Masinloc Coal Plant, for example, displaced hundreds of families upon its construction and failed to provide proper and humane resettlement for those affected. These coal companies are parasites, leeching off the earth’s resources and the people’s lives,” Rivera said.

As exemptions continue to justify the expansion of the coal portfolio in the country, communities and environmental groups continue to oppose these dirty energy projects. A case in point is the 73-MW Toledo expansion that has caused suffering to the host community due to its negative health, livelihood, and environmental impacts.

While the 73-MW Toledo expansion is exempt from the coal moratorium, people continue to oppose these dirty energy projects, especially as their community has been suffering the effects of existing coal plants.

“Coal plant expansions only expand the suffering they bring to the people in Toledo. These are communities that have already lost their homes and their work because of these dirty coal plants. Coal ash covers their shores and hangs in the very air they breathe. Their waterways are blocked and their flow reversed because of illegal reclamation to make way for the facilities required to sustain these coal plants. What they should be given is their lives, their environment, and their community back, not more coal,” PMCJ Visayas Coordinator Estela Vasquez said.

MGen also expressed intentions of using ammonia as a viable alternative to coal, as it is used by developed countries, and co-fired with coal in their power plants. However, these are not without risks, and the emissions it lessens are essentially minuscule.

“Ammonia co-firing is not a clean alternative to coal. In fact, a study conducted in Japan found that it increases the amount of pollutants in the air,” Rivera said. He further explained, “The planned use of fossil gas, which uses LNG as a transition fuel to cleaner sources, is also a fraudulent endeavor. It falsely promotes fossil gas as cleaner than coal. It is not. It is more expensive and causes cardiorespiratory health problems in surrounding communities, as we have seen and documented in Batangas.”

“The recent Meralco rate hike and its insistence on using dirty coal and fossil gas have shown its greed for profit at the expense of the environment and our communities. What we demand from these companies is a genuine shift to clean and safe renewable energy sources, not these false solutions marketed as breakthroughs in our race against climate catastrophe. Our planet, our country is burning and Meralco is lighting more matches,” Rivera ended. ###

#EndCoal #FossilFuelPhaseOut #ClimateJusticeNow