Banco De Oro Universal Bank (BDO Unibank) on Friday bared a new policy against financing the construction of new coal-fired power plants as a matter of course going forward.
But while the commitment is ironclad, BDO Unibank president and chief executive officer Nestor V. Tan said the lender will continue supporting the requirements of existing coal facilities because the alternative could prove disastrous.
“We will no longer fund new capacity. However, we will continue to support the running of existing capacity,” Tan told financial reporters shortly before the bank’s annual stockholders’ meeting Friday.
This remark arose from criticisms the lender continues to underwrite activities whose outcome ruin the environment and counterintuitive to government policy on boosting the contribution of renewable power sources to the country’s energy mix and cutting down on the burning of fossils as fuel for electricity.
Tan candidly acknowledged there is a caveat to the declared policy against funding new coal facilities, saying that in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework, a tradeoff necessarily happens.
“So if the tradeoff on funding new coal is between six-hour brownouts for each of us and funding new coal power plants, then we will support the government policy, whatever is required.”
BDO Unibank president and chief executive officer Nestor V. Tan
“So it is not something that you can say unilaterally that you will stop coal because the impact of no electricity is probably a lot more than the impact of coal power plants,” he quickly added.
Tan’s comments has relevance to the condition of the country’s power grid system where so-called forced outages and the de-rating of some of the power firms compel the Department of Energy to declare red and yellow alert status over Luzon and the Visayas where thinning power reserves dance on the edge of disaster.
Conditions are such that the regulator, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) signaled the intent to look into the circumstances forcing some of those power companies to go into forced outages, and possibly impose sanction.
This develops as the heat index over metro Manila the past five days ranged from 39 to 41 Celsius and forecast to remain this hot over the weekend when the temperature stays at 40 degrees Celsius, forcing Metro Manila and its environs to use even more electricity to cool down.
Filipinos are told that temperatures at this range warrant the taking of extreme caution when heat cramps and heat exhaustion are possible and continuing whatever activity Filipinos have could lead to heat stroke.
