The cost of energy dependence and the discipline to break it

Every time conflict breaks out in the Middle East, it finds its way into Filipino homes. Not through headlines but through higher electricity bills, transport costs and more expensive food.

We do not see the conflict but we feel it. We pay for instability we do not control.

When the pressure builds, we reach for what we know — more fuel and more imports. We keep the lights on and then move on.

It works. Until it doesn’t.

This is where the conversation on climate change becomes real in the way monthly bills are real.

Long before emissions or energy transitions, we understood something simpler: how to care for land, for water, for each other.

We did not need policy to learn that. Care is not the constraint. Consistency is.

The climate crisis arrives unannounced, stays longer and costs more. And when costs rise, attention shifts. By then, survival takes priority and climate action begins to feel optional. But it isn’t and it shouldn’t.

This is where Earth Hour earns its place.

For one hour, lights go out, buildings dim, and skylines soften. The country breathes, briefly.

This year, the Department of Energy reported a 145.43-megawatt reduction. Over 145,000 kilowatt-hours avoided.

It happened during peak evening demand, when power is most expensive and often fueled by imported energy. In simple terms, we avoided high-cost power for one hour.

Then the lights came back on. The lesson learned since 2007 when we started observing Earth Hour — if demand can shift even briefly then it was never as fixed as we assumed.

We tell ourselves the system is too large to change. Then, for 60 minutes, we change it. Not dramatically nor permanently, but enough to ease pressure on the grid and reduce expensive peak generation.

These are not small gains, particularly for households that count every peso, or to the businesses that pass on every increase. This is the quiet arithmetic of everyday life.

And it is also where global events land and hit hard.

Tensions in the Middle East tighten supply. Prices react. Effects travel quickly.

For a country like the Philippines, that exposure is immediate. Mas mahal na kuryente. Mas mahal na pamasahe. Mas ramdam na gastos sa araw-araw.

While we do not see the conflict, we absorb it.

But the harder, inconvenient truth: Crises do not always push us forward. Sometimes, they pull us back.

In moments like this, the instinct is to secure supply quickly and lean on the familiar — imported fuel, existing coal, short-term fixes that keep everything running.

That is understandable. But it is also how dependence deepens.

Temporary solutions settle in. Systems follow what is reinforced. So the same crisis that exposes our vulnerability can also extend it if we respond only to the immediate.

But, certainly, crises can also do the opposite and force clarity.

It can accelerate decisions, move investments faster, sharpen priorities, and make renewable energy and efficiency not just environmental but also strategic.

A crisis can lock us into the past but it can also push us, finally, into the future.

This is where government matters most.

Under the leadership of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., the Philippines has advanced a coherent set of policy frameworks —the Philippine Development Plan, the National Adaptation Plan, the Nationally Determined Contribution and its Implementation Plan, and the Philippine Energy Plan — aligning climate action, energy security and development.

These are already shaping decisions on where we invest, how we manage risk, and how we reduce exposure in an increasingly volatile energy landscape.

Together, they point to a clear shift: toward renewable energy, reduced dependence on imported fuels, and a more secure and resilient system.

The issue now, therefore, is not policy but follow-through.

This means faster renewable energy development and deployment, better and sustainable integrated and multi-modal mass transportation, infrastructure that can withstand shocks, and accelerated transition into a low carbon economy

These are practical but difficult. They require discipline from institutions and from all of us.

Individual action still matters. Energy conservation. Smarter consumption. Less waste. Small on their own but powerful at scale. And when millions of Filipinos adjust how they use energy, the system adjusts with them.

Earth Hour shows what is possible yet what truly matters is what happens after.

We often define resilience as the ability to recover, but in a time like this, that is not enough. Genuine resilience is the ability to avoid disruption in the first place.

The world will remain uncertain. Energy markets will move. Crises will come without warning. We cannot control that but we can certainly decide how exposed we are to it.

We can keep paying for a system we do not control or begin shaping one that works better for us. That choice is not made once. It is made in the habits we keep and the policies we advance long after the lights come back on.