Garin: DOE’s 2027 budget allocations to lower electricity prices

MANILA, Philippines — Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said Wednesday that the allocations in the proposed P5.6-billion budget of the Department of Energy (DOE) for 2027, which is 25 percent higher than its P4.43 billion approved budget in 2026, would lower electricity prices across the country.

Garin said this during the House Committee on Appropriations’ budget hearing when interpellated by Akbayan Partylist Rep. Perci Cendaña regarding the 25 percent increase in the agency’s proposed budget for next year.

The DOE’s proposed budget’s 25 percent increase focuses on its three programs: gradiometry study, mobile energy system, and automation. 

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READ: Meralco rates to dip by P0.0428/kWh in August 

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“Para sa ating mga kababayan na nakikinig, given all this po, Bababa na po ba ang presyo ng kuryente?” Cendaña asked after hearing Garin’s explanation on the agency’s proposed budget increase allocation.

(For our countrymen who are listening, given all this, will the price of electricity go down?)

The DOE secretary replied, “Generally, yes, sir. If you ask me, yes, it will lower the price.”

“If we have more oil and gas that are indigenous, yes, it will lower it. If we have more renewables, yes, it will lower it… [also] if we have good coordination between the policy and then the regulation,” Garin pointed out.

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“We need several things to make it lower and lower. And all these policies, eventually, the intention of all the policies that DOE is doing now, the intention really is to lower the rates,” she emphasized.

The DOE said that the gradiometry project aims to strengthen energy security and unlock the country’s energy potential by supporting exploration for oil, natural gas, native hydrogen, and geothermal resources.

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“It will take about P2 billion. This is a continuing project. 2026 was funded. So, another budget was allotted for 2027. This is for energy security,” Garin said during the budget hearing.

The DOE chief also explained that their mobile energy system unit is like a container with solar panels, which could be deployed to areas and islands without electricity connections. 

Meanwhile, the energy secretary said they also needed an increased budget for their Information Systems Strategic Plan for automation “so we can move faster and be more transparent.”

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In August, Manila Electric Co., or Meralco, implemented power rates of P14.7833 per kilowatt-hour. (Rendell Ivan Manuel, INQUIRER.net trainee) /mr