Cebu group to rally vs coal proliferation

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu Anti-Coal Network will have a march-rally today to join hands and in unison with the peoples of the world calling for the reclaim of power.

Today, October 10, is regarded as an annual global call to reclaim power and in effect against the proliferation of coal as a source of energy and instead pursue renewables as the alternative.

Teody Navea, the network's coordinator said that the group will   concretely impart its own call particularly Cebu's present predicament where there are approved coal projects that are allegedly detrimental to the province.

Navea in a statement said that Cebu is already home to many coal-fired plants and coal mining.

"To preserve and protect its environment, the government must review its operations and immediately come up with a viable transition towards the shift to renewables," said Navea, who is also a convenor of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.

Participants of the march-rally will converge at Fuente Osmeña between 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and will march towards Plaza Independencia for a program at 3 p.m.

PMCJ has been protesting the World Bank's continuous support to coal plants in the Philippines.

"Everyone knows that climate change is the single most urgent challenge that humanity is facing today and that continuous burning of fossil fuel particularly coal business as usual will shorten and narrow the gap for survival. There is now global impetuous that many countries are now phasing out the use of coal and new demands for energy are being addressed with clean and safe renewable energy," the PMCJ statement read.

However, PMCJ said that this is not the case in the Philippines.

According to Ian Rivera, PMCJ national coordinator, energy development relying on coal still corners financing portfolios.  The reason for this, he said, is the continuous support of the World Bank's International Financial Corporation on coal despite the serious policy shift last 2013 that the Bank will virtually stop its support for the construction of coal-fired power plants.

There are now a total of 20 coal-fired power plants financed by IFC financial intermediaries in the Philippines.

"These plants have created myriad of problems and strings of human rights issues against the Philippine communities, environmental issues and forced the relaxation or dilution of the country's environmental standards," Rivera added. (FREEMAN)