As of Friday (July 4), the energy sector was buzzing with one juicy tidbit: OIC Sharon Garin's appointment papers will reportedly make her ‘Acting’ Secretary. Naturally, the whole industry has raised eyebrows and asked in chorus: Wait, is the search for the next Energy Secretary still stuck on loading?

Does the ‘Acting Secretary’ title simply serve as a placeholder, waiting for Congress-underpinned Commission on Appointments to give the green light for permanence? Or is this the Office of the President's subtle way of testing what OIC Garin can actually deliver before locking in the DOE leadership seat for good?

Highly-placed sources hinted that the appointment will be out soon, but whether it shifts from ‘Acting’ to permanent is anyone’s guess.

Further fueling the industry buzz is talk of another contender for the Secretary post—a senior energy official whose mark is etched across the sector’s largest investments – renewable energy. With some elite segments also aggressively lobbying for this pick, it appears that the race is still intensifying.

Outside the Department of Energy‘s orbit, talks are similarly swirling that the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) will soon have prospective appointment coming from a powerful office in Malacañang. With two Commissioners retiring this July, the pressure is mounting to fill the vacancies fast – because leaving those posts empty for long could cripple the agency’s ability to deliver swift, decisive rulings when the sector demands immediate action.

As the energy sector holds its breath for the next wave of appointments, investors and key stakeholders have no choice but to sit tight and will just ponder how the industry’s fate will be shaped with the forthcoming batch of decision-makers.

How true that a key energy official is quietly ‘urging’ a company not to join the upcoming competitive selection process (CSP) or the bidding for major power supply agreements (PSAs) of a giant power utility? And are suspicions true that certain technologies may be preferred in the upcoming CSP round?

The murky puzzle here is: isn’t that a clear case of anti-competitive behavior? And oh, is that not an apparent attempt to ‘kill’ somebody’s investment proposition or power project?

The DOE itself explicitly mandates CSP processes to be technology-neutral (meaning: no technologies shall be favored)—and that tendering for PSAs be awarded on ‘least cost basis’—so what does it say when a company that may potentially offer cheap bid (as reckoned on its technology class) is stealthily ‘requested’ to opt out from the race?

Tucked into the bicam version of the bill creating the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (PhilAtom) is a funding clause that taps into the universal charge (UC) collections of PSALM—but one has to wonder: did the lawmaker-framers even read the fine print of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA); in which UC funds were earmarked for specific, non-nuclear purposes? Or are we now bending financial mandates to fuel a nuclear dream?

The universal charges, once collected by PSALM, aren’t meant to sit pretty with them – these must be swiftly disbursed to recipient-entities, with the lion’s share funneled to missionary electrification for state-run National Power Corporation (NPC). Then here’s the kicker: that pot is already running out of cash, with deficits piling up due to regulatory lag on pending applications, so where exactly is this nuclear money supposed to come from?

Further, the UC fund isn’t a free-for-all slush pile, it is legally intended somehow for environmental protection, renewable energy developers’ cash incentive (REDCI) and to purposively help wipe out NPC’s stranded debts. Diverting it elsewhere isn’t just a stretch, it’s a swipe at the fund’s core mandate.

Specifically, what is stipulated in the administrative functions under the PhilAtom bill is a directive on “reallocation to be taken from all remittances of the universal charges currently imposed and collected equivalent to half-a-centavo per kilowatt-hour (₱0.005/kWh) which shall be for the benefit of the PhilAtom” – but that’s essentially chopping off a piece of lawfully-earmarked fund to bankroll a new agency, and that could mean shortchanging long-standing obligations already gasping for air.

In particular, PhilAtom is targeting the UC funds for: 1) construction of buildings or acquisition of office and laboratory space; 2) human resource development and expansion, including the hiring of local or foreign consultants; 3) purchase of equipment and motor vehicles; 4) upgrading of facilities, equipment and maintenance; and 5) other operating expense of the PhilAtom in the performance of its mandate to ensure adequate protection to the public and the environment.

The bill claims the reallocation to PhilAtom won’t trigger new charges or hike the existing universal charges collected under PSALM’s watch—but let’s cut through this spin: slicing up the same pie without baking a bigger one just means someone else in the energy chain goes hungrier; and most likely, it’s the marginalized consumers still left in the dark on lack of access to electricity.

Still, while the measure targets to carve out a fraction of the UC for PhilAtom, Section 56 of the bill tells a different story—mandating that the agency’s initial funding should come from the current year’s budget of concerned departments, straight from the General Appropriations Act; then continuing allocation for the agency shall also be prescribed. So the question is: why eye the UC fund at all when the proposed law itself is already pointing to the national budget as the rightful source?

Now this is the Gordian knot: did the framers of the PhilAtom bill even bother to study where PSALM’s UC collections are legally meant to go – particularly the electrification fund that powers off-grid communities and the country’s most marginalized consumers? Because if PhilAtom taps that pot, it’s not just budget reallocation that will happen here, it’s robbing energy access from the poor to fuel a nuclear ambition. So tell us: where’s energy security in that?

Power industry players see the UC provision in the PhilAtom bill as a textbook case of legislative overreach, essentially showing that those who pushed for this measure may lack a full grasp of the UC’s legal roots and purpose. And was there any real consultation with the agencies that manage the fund and the stakeholders who’ll be left footing the bill— or was this a silent grab dressed up as policy?

So if PhilAtom’s financial lifeline is tied to UC collections, it’s already reaching for an empty wallet -- meaning the framers of the bill risk sabotaging their own vision by starving the very agency meant to spearhead nuclear power regulation before it even gets off the ground.

And here’s an even tougher mind-bender: were power project developers even at the table during PhilAtom’s legislative grind? Because by their own account, they were left completely in the dark. PhilAtom would be wise to take heed; because no matter how cutting-edge the reactors of foreign suppliers, without investors buy-in, those targeted nuclear power projects may not see the light of day.