The Middle East conflict of 2026 has exposed the Philippines’ overreliance on imported fossil fuels and its structural vulnerabilities that have been accumulating over the years. Spiking oil prices, soaring inflation, and supply chain disruptions have triggered a national energy emergency – the first country in the world to declare such a precarious state.

For decades, the Department of Energy (DOE) treated imported natural gas as a safe bridge to a cleaner future. The current oil crisis has shattered that illusion. Relying on foreign gas simply swaps one volatile fossil fuel dependency for another. When global choke points tighten, Filipino consumers pay the price through inflated transport costs and exorbitant electricity bills.

During a crisis, the most dangerous thing a government can do is to follow a playbook that facts no longer support. When the Fukushima nuclear disaster struck in 2011, Japan could have stubbornly stuck to its old energy plans. Instead, it delivered an instructive lesson in governance by swiftly adapting after confronting the sudden loss of its 50-reactor nuclear fleet that supplied almost one-third of the country’s power. Japanese leaders temporarily leaned on coal and gas to secure the grid, buying them crucial time to safely scale up renewable energy (RE).

Today, the Philippines is being forced to take the exact same test. We import roughly 55 percent of our primary energy supply, while power generation self-sufficiency has dropped to 39 percent. The domestic natural gas from Malampaya will be depleted soon, thus increasing the share of imported gas in the generation mix whose prices could move sharply without warning. As a direct effect, Meralco residential rates have climbed to ₱14.35 per kilowatt-hour.

Recently the ING Group cut its GDP growth projection for the Philippines to 4.5 percent from 5.2 percent, citing the country’s high exposure to energy price shocks. According to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, the ongoing energy crisis risks pushing 1.3 million Filipinos into poverty. These forecasts raise a crucial question about the quality of our energy policymakers: are the decisions being made today proportionate to the situation that we are actually in?

At the core of that question is the coal moratorium issued in 2020 under different economic conditions. Holding a categorical restriction in place while the supply environment has materially deteriorated is a policy that is increasingly misaligned with the conditions it is supposed to govern. The best-run institutions in the world do not treat their policies as permanent once written, but as frameworks that should be stress-tested against changing conditions and revised when the evidence requires it. In its governance principles, the Institute of Corporate Directors is explicit on this point: boards have a fiduciary duty to act on the best available information, not on those that existed when a policy was first adopted. This same principle applies to the government.

Energy transitions in Japan and the European Union (EU) have already shown the way. The EU Taxonomy recognizes conventional fuels as legitimate transitory instruments while RE scales up. After the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan maintained gas and coal while aggressively building renewables – growing its clean energy share from 10.4 percent in 2011 to 25.7 percent in 2023.

As the Philippines builds its own RE pipeline with over ₱5 trillion in clean energy investments since 2023, the DOE has signaled that crisis exceptions to the moratorium are under review. The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry is also calling for a reassessment as a practical energy bridge measure. These governance positions reflect the view that policy must be calibrated to reality – that the Filipino public must be protected from supply gaps and the power bill shocks that follow.

A real-time policy correction is no longer optional. True energy security means dismantling bureaucratic red tape and expanding grid connectivity. The central paradox lies between an ambitious RE goal by 2030 and the practical realities of a grid that is experiencing significant instability due to volatile geopolitical tensions.