Jot down another victory for all the anti-coal advocates out there.

Clean energy and consumers rights group Power for People Coalition (P4P) hailed on Wednesday, April 28 the cancellation of the 600-megawatt (MW) Subic coal plant project listed under Redondo Peninsula Energy Inc. (RP Energy), calling it a triumph of communities at the forefront of the fight against coal.

The Subic coal plant project is a joint venture of the Manila Electric Company’s (Meralco) generation arm Meralco PowerGen, Aboitiz Power Corporation, and Taiwan's Cogeneration Corp.

“While the cancellation of the Subic coal plant is a welcome development, we no longer find it surprising given the many triumphs that groups advocating for clean energy have won," P4P Convenor Gerry Arances said.

"We recall how, in 2019, the contract of RP Energy among the seven power supply agreements (PSA) of Meralco denied by the Supreme Court for failing to adhere to proper procurement practices. Meralco has since been struggling to secure PSAs for these projects," said Arances, who is also a convenor of green energy group Withdraw from Coal (WFC).

With these successive setbacks and supposed mounting losses, he expressed hope that the entities that have been pursuing new coal-powered plants during all these years would "start to see sense".

P4P went on to claim that the Subic coal plant cancellation and the PSA rejections were built on the decade-long resistance of local communities.

"We have seen the kind of destruction coal and other fossil fuels wreaked onto other communities in Zambales and across the country. With this news (cancellation), we are able to face the youth and future generations of Subic residents with pride knowing we won the fight against this dirty energy project," said Jen Velarmino Van der Heijde, president of Subic Bay Freeport Chamber for Health and Environment Conservation (SBFCHEC).

The fate of the Subic coal plant project should prod distribution giant Meralco to reconsider its proposed 1,200-MW coal-fired plant in Quezon under its subsidiary Atimonan One Energy (A1E), Arances said.

He noted that a major backer of the two projects, the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), has opted to pull out before either endeavor could get off the ground.

Green energy advocates have long referred to coal as a dirty energy source. The church and civil society-backed WFC said power generation via coal is a "water-intesive process"--a big reason why it hurts the environment.

“The failure of RP Energy in pursuing its Subic coal plant should already be a lesson learned for Meralco, other coal proponents, and financiers that coal will result in nothing but problems for them in years to come. On our part as residents of Quezon, we would continue using our voices to amplify the cry of the Earth against coal," said Fr. Warren Puno, Director of the Ministry of Ecology of the Diocese of Lucena.