What the biofuels law mean to you and me

That Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) already signed into law the Biofuels Act is the beginning of truly inculcating into our national consciousness that we are amongst those countries that have no fossil fuel resources of our own. For years, it's been so difficult for Filipinos to go into some kind of fuel savings program. This law on biofuels would in effect force Pinoy motorists to use fuel with alternative additives. We've already written a lot on these alternative fuels like Ethanol or Bio-diesel.

Call it timely then that the last major declaration signed by the World Leaders during the 2nd East Asian Summit (EAS) at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) last Monday was the Declaration on Energy Security. This declaration was easy for the world leaders to sign as most of these nations (except perhaps for Brunei) already have their own biofuels law. But for ASEAN, it is still a step in the right direction because the less fossil fuel we use, the less pollution we create or release into the environment.

If you've been watching many television documentaries about global warming, like how the ice cap is melting away or about the less frozen tundra in Siberia, you'd really be concerned that man's economic progress is the principal source of global warming. I'm sure everyone realized last December that the heat was almost as hot as in summer or that we got hit by a typhoon last month when supposedly the typhoon season was already over.

Another strange phenomenon that happened here lately was the two weeks of non-stop rain that poured which finally ended at the height of our hosting the ASEAN Summit. In the past, after three days of rain, the sun always comes out. No doubt the world's weather pattern has been so altered and we can only blame ourselves for not doing much to keep our planet on a steady keel.

When things become unbearable, often Mother Earth hits back with record-breaking earthquakes, tsunamis or erupting volcanoes. All these happened all within two years. Mt. Pinatubo was one of those volcanoes whose violent eruption was considered one of the most violent in recorded history. Who would know that Mt. Pinatubo would give us one of the greatest explosions in modern history when the last time it erupted, Ferdinand Magellan wasn't even born?

Signing the Biofuels Act is the step in the right direction but we must do more than just force alternative additives to add into the fuel. We must establish plans and programs to convert idle lands into sugar plantations dedicated solely for the production of ethanol. But let's not rush into this. Someone ought to do a study on how the Brazilians were able to free themselves from the clutches of full dependence on Arab oil.

My little understanding of the Brazilian fuel program was they kept oil prices high in order to subsidize the ethanol industry. This was especially difficult for Brazilians especially in those times when the cost of fuel or oil was very cheap. Many of them thought this was a stupid idea. Today, with the entry of India and China into the world markets, their more than one billion people are now buying motor vehicles causing oil prices to skyrocket, Brazil is the first nation to declare itself free from fossil oil!

Just a little over a year ago, I learned during the full council meeting of the Regional Development Council (RDC) that the Department of Agriculture (DAR), the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) were not talking to each other about alternative fuels. I found to my horror during their presentation for alternative fuels that their plans call for its use was still to be implemented in the year 2010!

I asked these bureaucrats if they were aware that oil prices were reaching record levels. Sure they were aware of this, but since government pays their salaries, they really didn't care to look into our own natural resources if we could scrounge out any alternative uses for fuel. Only then did these people start moving their lazy butts!

With the Biofuels law, we hope that in ten years time, we shall see the coconut industry grow because diesel engines would now be using a 100 percent biodiesel, while gasoline cars would now be running on a 50-50 gasoline/ethanol blend. I'd like to see coconut farmers growing more coconut trees rather than cutting them into coco-lumber. I'd like to see more sugar plantations devoted solely for the production of Ethanol. That's because the money Filipino motorists spend for fuel would no longer go to those Petro-dictators like in Iran and instead go to poor Filipino farmers whose lives would be uplifted thanks to this law. Above all, these fuels help clean up our environment!