In last week’s column, I touched on key agribusiness areas as a driver for industrial growth in Mindanao, noting how renewed corporate interest in the downstream coconut processing industry generates growth.

In this column, I would like to focus on Mindanao’s energy and minerals sector because these sectors, both separately and together, can fuel the island’s industrial growth.

Time was when the need for a strong and stable power sector was to banish the days of rotating brownouts due to a lack of supply. In recent years, we have seen an increase in available power, but these need to be increased to meet growing demand. Today, we can browse through the Department of Energy website to see numerous proposed power projects in Mindanao’s pipeline. These can sustain the growth of available energy needed to fuel two outcomes.

The first is more affordable energy for industry, commerce, and residents. The imperative for new renewable energy projects is to utilize local resources rather than imported fuel, which requires precious foreign exchange and can lead to volatile price swings. More renewable energy should keep the supply situation stable over time. Some fossil fuel plants, such as diesel or bunker may be needed for technical reasons such as keeping voltages stable, which are beneficial for more households that use digital appliances and gadgets.

The Green Energy Option (GEOP) and the Retail Electricity Supply (RES) Program of the government affords industrial and commercial establishments the opportunity to source cheaper electricity. These help keep manufacturing costs low, helping them achieve competitiveness and expand to create more jobs.

The second is to provide energy for the eventual shift in mobility from fossil fuel vehicles that use imported oil to electric cars, trucks, trains, jeeps, buses and motorcycles using locally provided electricity. To assure both outcomes, Mindanao’s untapped renewable energy resources can be developed in order to provide the renewable energy necessary to provide power to a growing population needing cheaper mobility, and more jobs to make things which the island and the country needs.

Complementing the need for energy to fuel growth is ensuring a stable base of responsible mining and mineral processing. This can also provide the materials for batteries to power the aforementioned electric vehicles. In particular, mining and minerals processing industries can provide materials such as cement and steel for the construction of stable dwellings and infrastructure for the people. These material-based industries are the backbone of the growth that feeds the needs of Mindanaoans. The recent approval of the new mining fiscal regime will help harness investment for the private sector partners. Incentives for battery and electric vehicle manufacture will need to be applied and promoted and private sector initiatives for manufacturing these items need our support.

That said, I believe Mindanao, the “Land of Promise,” is not an old cliché as some may think. Rather, it is the battle cry of a recently awakened generation that has seen how even small infrastructure improvements, increased investor interest, global attention, and other factors may have attracted interest to their once-ignored island. The wider roads and rising skylines of the cities attest to these inspiring results, illuminating the more than ₱3 trillion economy it is now worth.

Furthermore, boosting the industrial and economic potential of Mindanao as the country’s second-largest economy is a national imperative. Through the industries I featured in recent columns, this imperative needs to be understood, harnessed, and advocated by all, since Mindanao’s development feeds the country’s growth.