Rowena Caronan

At midterm, Marcos’ climate and energy targets move in different directions

In President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.s’ first three SONAs from 2022 to 2024, ABS-CBN Fact Check tracked a total of 12 promises or issues his administration has vowed to address in the climate and energy sectors. Only two have been completed and eight are in progress.

Article (news)

Eliseo Ruel Rioja

ABS-CBN Research and Verification Unit

<div>[[PHOTO ALBUM]] </div><div> </div>By the time President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. takes the stage on July 28 to deliver his fourth State of the Nation Address, he is already halfway through his term. In Marcos’ first three SONAs from 2022 to 2024, ABS-CBN Fact Check tracked a total of 12 promises or issues his administration has vowed to address in the climate and energy sectors. Of the president’s 12 SONA promises in the two sectors over the past three years, only two have been completed, while eight are in progress. Two are yet to be assessed because of a lack of available data. <div>A balancing act </div>Three years after Marcos vowed to ensure reliable and uninterrupted electricity while supporting climate goals, his administration has yet to deliver on both and arrive at a harmonized policy. In his past SONAs, Marcos promised to promote both renewables and natural gas, a non-renewable option that is framed as a stopgap to meet the growing energy demand. The Marcos administration is pushing for a 40% share of renewable energy in the country’s power mix in the new National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plan and Roadmap 2023-2050. Although the new roadmap is a step in the right direction, all this while the share of renewable energy has declined since 2020. The country remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels, a major driver of climate change, with coal accounting for two-thirds of total power generation in 2024. Imported coal alone gained almost 5% more share in 2024, based on data from the Department of Energy (DOE). In January 2025, Congress passed Republic Act No. 12120, or the Philippine Natural Gas Industry Development Act, which aims to boost investments in natural gas and increase the country’s energy supply. According to DOE, the country currently has four petroleum service contracts for oil and gas production and 11 contracts that are still in the exploration phase. <div>Gaps persist </div>Over the past three years, the Marcos administration has built new power plants and connected power grids. Among these are the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project and Cebu-Negros-Panay Backbone Project Stage 3, both aiming to secure energy between and among islands in Visayas and Mindanao. But Filipino homes are not out of the dark just yet. In June 2024, unscheduled power interruptions occurred in Panay Island. In March 2025, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines issued a yellow alert for its Luzon grid due to increased demand and the outages of power plants. The national electrification rate stood at 94.75% in 2024. It was higher than the previous year but still 5% shy of the president’s 2028 target. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) continues to lag behind in terms of power access. From 2020 to 2024, the region consistently logged the lowest electrification level, with more than half of the region still lacking electricity. The promised creation of a Department of Water Resource Management for water security has yet to materialize, too. The bill was pending second reading in the Senate as of August 2024. <div>And there was light </div>As extreme weather, like storms and heat, strains the country’s resources, Marcos signed into law the Loss and Damage Fund Board Act in August 2024. This came after the government won the bid to host the board of the fund. The law allows the government to devise solutions and respond to the impacts of climate change. As of April 2025, pledges for the fund reached USD786 million, targeted for developing countries recovering from losses caused by climate change. Based on data from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, 1,001 evacuation centers built from 2022 to 2024 are operational and have been added to the 28,083 recorded in 2019. Of these new evacuation centers, 498 were built in 2022, 476 in 2023, and 27 in 2024. But whether these are enough is a question that available data cannot answer. The Disaster Response Command Center was also launched in January 2024 to accelerate the government&#x27;s relief efforts. Meanwhile, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) developed three major disaster monitoring, mapping, and forecasting instruments. Using these technologies, the state weather bureau supposedly can forecast oil spills, map storm surges, and visualize lightning occurrences. Allocations for PAGASA’s research and development in 2025 also received a P55-million boost from the previous year, although there is also no available data to assess whether these are sufficient.

In President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.s’ first three SONAs from 2022 to 2024, ABS-CBN Fact Check tracked a total of 12 promises or issues his administration has vowed to address in the climate and energy sectors. Only two have been completed and eight are in progress.