Philippine Energy Plan

This Friday I attended one of the public consultations for the Philippine Energy Plan 2008-2030. Of course I was not invited, but I was asked by our executive director - who is co-chair of the Economy and Development Committee for region XI - to... 'represent' her. It was a funny experience. I was, as usual, the only white person in the room. More importantly, I was the ONLY person representing an NGO (a fact I discovered when NGO representatives were asked to stand up...). I believe that says a lot about the intentions of this energy plan. The plan is simple enough: we need to tap as much power resources as fast as we can. Privatization is the answer to that, since corporate companies have the kind of capital government can only dream of. The people in the audience, therefore, were either government or businessmen. As an NGO with environmental concerns, you are basically waving a flag in space. It is somewhat demotivating that after the passing of so many laws on environmental protection and indigenous peoples' rights, the Philippine government still pretends as if the natural resources are just up for grabs and everyone can just tap them. As if the land is vacant space... But it was also enlightening to see things from a completely different perspective. From the point of view of a government that is facing an energy crisis and has a lot of natural resources untapped, the importance of something like IP rights becomes a tiny issue compared to the big economical challenges. The moderator of our workshop talked about 'irrational stakeholders', and I guess he was talking about silly old us caring for the environment and IP rights. It also somewhat humbles you, I guess, to see how easily those things are downplayed at that level. Anyway, I did feel out of place between rich and fat investors I must say...