With the recent endorsement of more than P23 billion in renewable energy projects by the Board of Investments (BOI) Management Committee, the Marcos administration now eyes the approval of large-scale solar and wind power initiatives that will hasten the country’s clean energy transition.
While it will enhance the Philippines’ long-term energy security with the help of over 320 megawatts of generation capacity, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) sees otherwise, warning that the aggressive push will spur “an unprecedented wave of land grabbing across the country” that will endanger famers, indigenous groups and rural
communities.
In a Facebook post, the group shared a data by the Department of Energy (DOE), where it revealed that the proposed combined solar and wind projects need an estimate 3.113 million hectares of land. This land requirement, which the KMP said the “government is quietly approving,” is half of all agriculture land in the Philippines, and larger than the
combined land area of Negros and Palawan.
DOE figures further indicate that, if implemented, these green awards will require millions of hectares of land, many of which are formerly farm holdings, ancestral domains, coastal commons, forests, or fishing grounds. KMP also believes that what the DOE describes as “clean energy” may become “the largest wave of land dispossession in decades.”
“Marcos is allowing massive land-grab under guise of clean power. The government is auctioning off millions of hectares to foreign firms and local cronies while peasants face eviction, militarization, and loss of livelihood,” the group said, citing that 963,185 hectares are required for solar projects, while more than 2 million hectares are required for wind
projects.
This “green energy boom,” the KMP added, is the “false climate solution” that is slowly
turning into reality.
“Behind every targeted megawatt and the green rhetoric lies a frantic scramble to convert vast tracts of land, coastal areas, forests, waterways, and agricultural lands into energy estates.”
