Airing thoughts and hopes relative to the recently delivered 2023 State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr, the President of Tagum City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc., pushed for immediate realization of the “renewable energy” thrust of the President.
As guest of the PIA Davao del Norte-run program, TCCCII President Aerol Conde called on President Marcos to fast-track the implementation of his priority thrust on renewable energy including the solar energy.
“Nahisgutan ni President Marcos ang renewable energy, and when we talk about renewable energy, urgent na nga atong kinahanglan. ((President Marcos mentioned renewable energy, and when we talk about renewable energy, this is our urgent need),” he said in a recent episode of Kapihan sa DavNor.
“Dili ingon nga (i)dugay-dugay ni, paspasi kung mahimo, Mr. President dalii ni, kay kinahanglan namo ni. Every day nga wala ning renewable energy, ga suffer ang mga konsumante, mga tao. (We should not dilly-dally; if it’s possible make it fast, Mr. President. Absence of renewable everyday, the consumers, the people are suffering),” he said
President Marcos devoted equally substantial portion of his SONA on power and energy supply, and he cited renewable energy as “the way forward”.
“We are aggressively promoting renewables, so that it provides a 35 percent share in the power mix by 2030, and then on to 50 percent by 2040. To accelerate the realization of this green energy goal, we have opened renewable energy projects to foreign investments,” President Marcos said in his 2023 SONA.
Conde agreed that indeed renewable energy is the way forward citing the energy from the sun and from the wind as free, that can be tapped in lieu of foreign-sourced fossil fuel, and the depleting hydro sources of power like the Maria Cristina Falls.
Conde pushed for renewable energy in the midst of high cost of power rates of the electric cooperative operating in Tagum City and the municipalities in the first district of Davao del Norte.
He revealed power rates in Tagum are pegged at a range of P15 to P17 per kilowatt hour (kwh) which is way higher than the P10 per kwh that a private power company operating in the 2nd District of Davao del Norte is charging.
He viewed the high cost of power in Tagum City as “crisis” for the businessmen and entrepreneurs who have to spend more on the same product that their counterparts are producing in Panabo City and Davao City where electricity charge is low.(JMDA/PIA Davao del Norte)
