PH hosts 7th Bioenergy week

• Source:https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1023876
• Monday July 1, 2019

By Jerome Carlo R. Paunan (PIA InfoComm)

QUEZON CITY (PIA) -- The timing is perfect.

This is what local proponents were saying in describing the Philippines’ hosting of the 7th Bioenergy Week of the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) in Manila from June 24-28, where different countries discussed their utilization of biofuels and biomass.

Philippine Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the Senate Committee on Energy, said the event was “really timely” because, according to him, the Philippines embraced the use of bioenergy, particular biofuels, as well as renewable energy, even before its ASEAN peers.

“We came up with our renewable energy law ten years ago, we also have a biofuels law ten years ago, and the direction here is to embrace the use of renewable energy, as well as biofuels, and achieve two folds. Number one is to come up with a sustainable future for our next generation. Cleaner power, cleaner energy for the next generation. And the second is to help out our farmers increase their income, increase their productivity, and this will come in the form of expanded use of methanol and biodiesel in our country,” Gatchalian said.

For his part, Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Robert Uy said, “We would like to really thank the GBEP for considering the Philippines as a venue for the event. We have cooperation and the technologies here. We are going to learn all these experiences all over the world and hopefully we can have them adopted in the local content.”

“As far as the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is concerned we strongly support the Bioenergy program under our government and surely whatever it is there for the bioethanol energy, the SRA supports,” Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica said. SRA is one of the hosts of the major event that brought together public, private, and civil society stakeholders committed to promoting bioenergy for sustainable development.

Gatchalian admits however, that despite bioenergy remaining costly, he and other proponents still see its potential benefits to farmers and for the environment.

“One of the things we wanted to push in the country is R&D, meaning looking for alternative feedstock to supply biofuels. We need to conduct research and development as well as compare it with other countries’ best practices around the world and bring that know-how here to the Philippines,” he said.

“Unfortunately, even though we were one of the early adopters of bioenergy, biofuels, renewable energy, if you look at the statistics, its not growing at the phase that we want it to be. In fact, if you were going to ask our farmers, if they are benefiting from biofuels, our local farmers would probably have many qualms before they answer yes, but the farmers in the United States may probably answer a resounding ‘yes’ because half of our ethanol comes from abroad. And this is not the spirit of the Biofuels Act. The spirit of “biofuels” is really to propagate the use of ethanol and biodiesel in order to lift our farmers from poverty. But if you are importing half of our ethanol from the US, then we are not achieving what we want to achieve on our social aspect,” he added.

Meanwhile, Sergio Taam, GBEP co-chair, said better energy access creates opportunities for the development of social programs such as healthcare, safer water supplies, sanitation, and better education facilities, and helping in the irradication of poverty.

The previous Bioenergy Week was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.