The tycoons behind the Philippines’ dirty energy

From brewing beer to burning coal, the Philippines’ food and beer giant – San Miguel Corp. (SMC) of tycoon Ramon Ang – is now one of the country’s largest power producers.

Its energy arm, San Miguel Global Power, is a younger player in the industry. But, flush with cash, it aggressively built, acquired, and expanded power plants over the last two decades. 

At the end of 2024, San Miguel claimed sector dominance with installed generation capacity of 6,079.6 megawatts (MW), the country’s largest. 

With a 22.4% market share of the national grid, San Miguel overtook Aboitiz Equity Ventures, or the Aboitiz Group, the family-owned conglomerate whose main business is power and is led by Sabin Aboitiz, economic adviser to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and convenor of the Private Sector Advisory Council.

The difference was only 185 MW, with Aboitiz holding 5,894.5 MW or 21.75% of the grid. 

The Aboitiz Group is poised to reclaim the top spot by year’s end, based on July 2025 data from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). But regardless of the ranking, the two conglomerates generate close to half of the country’s power supply. 

Their fuel of choice: coal. It is the single largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, which triggers global warming and extreme weather such as stronger typhoons, heavier floods, and prolonged droughts.

Coal-fired plants make up more than 60% of the facilities operated by San Miguel Global Power, according to its 2024 annual report. The Aboitiz Group, meanwhile, reported that coal accounted for 48% of its total net sellable capacity as of May 2025. Together with gas, fossil fuels made up at least 75% of the total capacity of both companies.

San Miguel and Aboitiz keep households lit and the economy running — including industries they themselves dominate — yet their reliance on coal has pushed the fossil fuel share of the country’s power generation from just 7.4% in 1990 to 62.5% in 2024. 

The science on the impact of coal on climate change is settled. In 2015, governments recognized the urgency of the climate emergency and adopted the landmark Paris Agreement at COP21, committing to limit global warming well below 2°C and pursue efforts to cap it at 1.5°C. The Philippines, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, pushed for the inclusion of the 1.5°C target in the final text. 

In line with these commitments, the Philippine Energy Plan set targets to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and raise renewables from the current 22% to 35% by 2030 and to 50% by 2040.

Given their hold on the market, the same conglomerates have the power to accelerate—or obstruct—these targets.

Continued expansion of fossil fuels

Each new power plant that goes online is either a step forward or a step back for the country’s transition to clean energy.

Coal helped San Miguel to surpass Aboitiz in 2024. Three of four units of its coal plant in Mariveles, Bataan were commissioned between March and December 2024, adding 450 MW.

Aboitiz rolled out new renewable projects this year, but another fossil fuel – liquefied natural gas (LNG) – increased its energy portfolio. In January, it completed the acquisition of a 27% stake in a $3.3-billion “mega deal” with Meralco and San Miguel to build an integrated LNG facility in Batangas. 

The transaction, which resulted in San Miguel giving up majority ownership of the assets, covers two LNG facilities – the 1,278-MW Ilijan combined-cycle plant of South Premiere Power Corp. and the new 1,320-MW facility of Excellent Energy Resources Inc. (EERI).

Meralco Power Gen Corp. took the biggest stake in the LNG venture at 40%. The subsidiary of the country’s largest power distributor, Meralco, which sources much of its supply from coal plants, is also its fourth-largest power producer.

Under a separate deal, Meralco will be buying 1,200-MW of LNG-generated output from the EERI facility.

Many of the conglomerates have turned to LNG in their bid to cut coal use. It is a move opposed by climate activists, who urge them to leapfrog directly to renewables, where many options are already available.

The continued LNG expansion is shaking up the country’s power sector.

In May 2025, tycoon Enrique Razon’s Prime Infrastructure Capital announced a P50-billion agreement to acquire a 60% stake in the Lopez Group’s Batangas LNG terminal project, though the deal has yet to be formalized. 

The gas fleet tied to the terminal generates nearly 2,500 MW, with another 1,200 MW in the pipeline. With a 60% stake, Razon would control about 1,500 MW of existing capacity—almost equal to the Ayala Group’s installed capacity. He is already active in power distribution.

The Lopez group is the country’s third-largest power producer, while the Ayala group ranks fifth.

It is important to consider the material consequences of phasing out coal plants without a viable and affordable baseload alternative.

aboitiz power, statement to pcij

Aboitiz Power said it was taking a “pragmatic approach to the energy transition,” citing the role of coal and LNG in balancing the country’s energy mix to ensure reliable and affordable power.  

“It is important to consider the material consequences of phasing out coal plants without a viable and affordable baseload alternative,” the company said in a statement sent to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

“The transition to a greater share of renewable energy in both the Philippine and AboitizPower’s energy mix will take time,” it said. 

Meralco PowerGen told PCIJ “renewable energy — while rapidly expanding — is not yet sufficient on its own to meet the continuous and growing demand for electricity.”. 

“While we recognize that LNG is still a fossil fuel, it has a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to coal and provides the flexibility and reliability our grid urgently needs while renewable energy and storage solutions continue to scale,” Meralco PowerGen said in a separate statement.

LNG is cleaner than coal, but it is comes at a higher cost.

‘Coal plants should be retired’

Climate activists contest the idea that coal and LNG are necessary for the country’s energy security. They said these are not only dirty fossil fuels but also the main drivers of high electricity costs in the country, since both are imported.

“Coal power plants should already be retired. They only appear economically viable because the additional costs are passed on to consumers,” said Romil Hernandez, director for energy policy at the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), referring to automatic pass-through fuel cost provisions that are charged to consumers through their electricity bills.

Aboitiz Power argued that market prices fluctuate and that consumers stood to benefit during cycles of low prices. “Currently, coal prices are low and thus we all enjoy affordable as well as reliable power due to this,” it said.

Meralco PowerGen told PCIJ it had started shifting to renewable energy, but claimed this process could not be rushed.

“It is true that global fuel price volatility directly affects electricity costs in the Philippines, since much of our coal and LNG supply is imported. This is precisely why [Meralco PowerGen] is accelerating the shift to renewable energy, which offers price stability, energy security, and affordability in the long term for Filipino consumers,” the Meralco unit told PCIJ.

“At the same time we must balance this transition with the country’s immediate need for reliable and continuous power supply,” it said.

Conglomerates know the reign of fossil fuels is ending, said climate expert Antonio La Viña, lead negotiator and spokesperson of the Philippine delegation during the 2015 Paris climate negotiation. 

“They want to maximize the operations [of their coal plants] before fully shifting to renewables. That’s the biggest obstacle to transition—the conglomerates that control the energy system refuse to cross over fully,” he said.

Jonelle Mitzi Tan, 27, a youth climate justice activist in the Philippines, urged fellow young people to get involved in pushing for clean energy because they would “live with the consequences the longest.”

“If we truly care about our people and our future, we cannot afford half-measures. We must phase out coal rapidly, cancel LNG expansion, and invest in renewables that are community-owned, accessible, and resilient in the face of typhoons and rising seas,” said Tan, convenor of the Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines.  

San Miguel did not respond to PCIJ’s questions. We will update this report when they do.

Power crisis, EPIRA, and expensive electricity

The Philippines now bears the second highest electricity rates in the region, next only to Singapore. Numerous studies trace this to policies crafted in response to the 1980s power crisis, later entrenched by the 2001 Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), which privatized the power sector. 

Without the subsidies to cushion costs that other governments provide, the country left households and businesses exposed — discouraging manufacturing and foreign investment. 

Eight- to twelve-hour blackouts in the 1990s crippled industries, eroded investor confidence, and fueled public uproar. The state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor), once the operator of all the country’s major generation assets, was burdened by debt and had limited capacity to build new plants. 

President Corazon Aquino’s 1987 Executive Order 215 opened power generation to private firms for the first time since the nationalization of the sector under Napocor. In 1993, Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, was granted emergency powers under the Electric Power Crisis Act, which he used to fast-track contracts with private producers.

Who had the financial muscle and technical expertise to build and operate new power plants of large capacities?

The country’s tycoons lacked both at the time, leaving foreign investors to take the lead, said Alberto Dalusung III, who served in the Ministry of Energy during the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. He is an advocate of renewable energy development.

The first Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) power plants ran on gas turbines—normally meant to run only during peak hours but pressed into continuous baseload operation while coal plants were still being built. They eased blackouts but saddled consumers with higher electricity bills.

Napocor built Masinloc and added a second unit to Calaca, while foreign firms developed Pagbilao and Sual under BOT deals. Completed between the late 1990s and early 2000s, these plants are still among the country’s largest coal-fired baseload facilities, or plants designed to meet minimum demand.

To solve the power crisis, Ramos encouraged investors by offering take-or-pay guarantees that ensured Napocor paid for fixed capacities whether or not the electricity was actually consumed. 

Activists protested, citing pollution, damaged fisheries, and health risks, but concerns over blackouts prevailed.

“We turned to coal in panic — or were manipulated into turning to coal,” said La Viña. The power crisis allowed a “strong coal lobby” to “shove the technology” onto the Philippines on the premise that large coal baseload power plants were quick to build and could deliver cheap electricity, he said.

The take-or-pay obligations bloated Napocor’s financial burden. This would become a key driver of the 2001 Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), which mandated the privatization of Napocor assets. 

The law, passed three years after Ramos left office, aimed to dismantle the state monopoly, restructure the power sector and broaden ownership of generation and distribution, encourage indigenous and renewable resources, and reduce reliance on imports.

EPIRA assigned three key institutions to carry out its reforms in the generation sector:

• The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) took over Napocor’s assets and debts, selling these to private players. 
• The Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) introduced a trading platform for generators
• The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) was tasked with rate regulation and consumer protection.

Two decades later, however, EPIRA has failed, critics argued. “Ang pangako ng EPIRA ay lower electricity cost. Palpak ‘yun (The promise of EPIRA was lower electricity costs. That promise failed),” said Gerry Arances of the Center for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED).

EPIRA allowed cross-ownership between power producers and distribution utilities, which blurred competition, La Viña said, as companies engaged in both generation and distribution.“Meralco is buying power from itself,” he said.

“The irony is: You wanted privatization and a free market. Instead, you ended up with oligarchs controlling your energy system,” said La Viña.

The irony is: You wanted privatization and a free market. Instead, you ended up with oligarchs controlling your energy system,” said La Viña.

Antonio La ViÑA

EPIRA allows a distribution utility to source up to 50% of its demand from an affiliated company, a rule critics say gives those firms an undue advantage over competitors. Meralco PowerGen told PCIJ that all its power supply agreements went through ERC approval.

The Ramos-era take-or-pay arrangements also persisted under new names like capacity payment. It worked the same way in practice, said Dalusung. Fuel pass-through clauses also let firms shift global fuel price volatility directly to consumers. 

When the rush to build coal plants left Luzon with an oversupply of power by the mid-2000s, consumers had to pay for the unused electricity.

The take-or-pay incentives made sense during a power crisis, said ICSC’s Hernandez. “But unlike in other countries where incentives have limits, here they seem to last forever,” he said. 

While the incentives shifted risks to consumers, investors virtually had none, he said. Today, it’s hard to name a tycoon who has not entered the power sector. 

Allegations of regulatory capture also abound, undermining effective oversight. As a recent Australian National University brief put it, EPIRA reinforced monopolies and oligopolies: “The energy sector remains deeply entrenched in the country’s oligarchic structures, weakening policy enforcement and hindering reform.”

Conglomerates fuel the coal boom

As conglomerates acquired Napocor assets and built new plants, Congress passed the Renewable Energy Act in 2008 to restore the use of indigenous resources, bring back renewable energy’s earlier dominance, strengthen energy self-reliance, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Opposition and implementation delays, however, blunted its impact, and by 2010, coal had overtaken renewables as the dominant source of power. 

During this period, local conglomerates also caught up with foreign firms, taking control of major coal plants and building new ones.

The Aboitiz family, which had long been in power distribution, expanded into generation during the power crisis. Dalusung said the family had built its reputation as a leading hydropower player – building small hydro plants and then acquiring Napocor’s assets – before moving into coal. 

In 2008, it acquired the 700-MW Pagbilao coal plant in Quezon through Therma Luzon Inc., its first big step into coal. The conglomerate now runs coal plants in Cebu, Davao, Misamis Oriental, and Bataan.

San Miguel entered the power sector in 2009 when it acquired the Independent Power Producer Administrator (IPPA) contract for the 1,200-MW Sual coal plant in Pangasinan. It now also runs coal plants in Zambales, Quezon, Bataan, and Davao.

La Viña said the country had the option to stay on its renewable trajectory, led by hydropower and geothermal. “We lost that edge when we turned to coal in panic,” he said.

“In the fork of the road, if we took the road of indigenous energy sources, we would have built that industry and then eventually reached a stage where other renewable energy, like solar and wind, can come through. But we made that mistake,” La Viña said.

One conglomerate went against the tide. First Gen Corp. of the Lopez family committed to shun coal investments in 2016. 

It was already dominant in the power sector even before the power crisis, as the previous owner of distribution utility Meralco, the country’s biggest distribution utility. It made early investments in geothermal energy and later made the offshore Malampaya natural gas project the backbone of its baseload power.

First Gen did make a bid for the Calaca coal power plant and later expressed interest in Mindanao’s first coal-fired power plant, but it failed or backed out of the deal. 

Arances recalled how the late Energy Secretary Gina Lopez made a presentation during a board meeting of the family company to persuade her siblings and her cousins to abandon coal. “There are bright spots within [the Lopez company], but if we talk about democratization, that’s a different conversation,” he said.

DMCI of the Consunji family acquired the Calaca plant in 2009. The Consunjis were already entrenched in construction and coal mining. Unlike others that relied on imported coal, the Consunjis controlled the entire chain through DMCI Power and Semirara Mining, making theirs an integrated coal-to-power business. 

Because of its coal operations, DMCI is one of the major companies expanding coal-fired power production in the Philippines, apart from San Miguel, the Aboitiz Group, and Meralco, Arances said.

Hernandez noted the irony that although the Philippines is rich in renewable energy resources, it remains heavily dependent on coal for electricity despite not having abundant coal reserves of its own.

“We should be able to maximize indigenous resources to ensure energy security. If we discount all imported-related costs, we can see that indigenous sources are cheaper and more reliable,” he said. 

Outside of power generation, tycoons also dominate the transmission and distribution sectors.

In 2007, Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. of the Sy family and Calaca High Power Corp. of Robert Coyiuto Jr., along with the State Grid Corporation of China, won the 25-year concession to run the country’s power transmission network through the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

Manuel Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. took control of Meralco after the Lopez family began to cede its control of the distribution utility in 2009, amid political pressure on its media business and failure to secure a rate hike from regulators. 

San Miguel briefly held the largest bloc, but Pangilinan steadily built up his holdings and secured majority control by 2013. 

LNG detour

Despite the dominance of fossil fuels in its energy mix, Aboitiz Power reports it is “one of the biggest contributors” to renewable energy power generation growth in the Philippines. “In fact, it currently has one of the largest amounts of renewable energy installed capacity at 1.4 GW, with 500 MW being brought on stream from 2023-2024,” it said in a statement. 

Meralco PowerGen said it “recognizes the urgency of the clean energy transition,” and reported installing 400 MWac (megawatts of alternating current) of net sellable capacity in seven provinces. “With current projects and an expanding pipeline, MGEN is expected to surpass its goal of 1,500 MW of renewable energy capacity by 2030,” it said. 

Energy transition is happening in the Philippines, but Arances said it is slow because “the fossil fuel industry is still holding on.” The expansion of fossil fuels has been faster than the renewable energy rollout, even as tycoons dominate both sectors, he said.

Tan accused the conglomerates of “greenwashing.” She urged them to commit to “retiring fossil fuels on urgent timelines, respecting human rights and Indigenous sovereignty, and protecting workers through job guarantees.”

She also called on the conglomerates to invest in community-led renewable projects. “Our energy transition needs to be public, decentralized, and community-led,” Tan said.

A report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the 2016 annual stockholders meeting of the Lopez-owned First Philippine Holdings Corp. may offer a glimpse of how the tycoons viewed the push for renewable energy. 

Company chair and chief executive officer Federico Lopez said “some businessmen” believed the country could still build more coal plants on the basis that “the Philippines was responsible for only 0.3 percent of global carbon emissions.”

These businessmen argued that coal plants “reduce power costs, create more jobs and allow the Philippines to catch up with other nations and industrialize,” he was quoted as saying.

On the heels of Supertyphoon “Haiyan” that killed tens of thousands in the central Philippines, the Lopez Group committed that it would never build, develop, or invest in any coal-fired power plant.

In 2022, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that the Philippines’ carbon dioxide emissions from energy were just about 0.4% of the global total, with power generation as a major contributor.

Climate activists said the argument missed the point. “Why in the first place should the power sector transition? It’s really about our survival at the end of the day. We know what climate change brings to us,” said Arances.

Advocates of renewable energy said continued reliance on fossil fuels undermines the country’s moral and diplomatic leverage when demanding climate finance and accountability from bigger polluters.

The Philippines hosts the Board of the Loss and Damage Fund, a new UN mechanism to help vulnerable nations recover from irreversible climate impacts, giving it a key role in shaping how resources are directed.

Tan said securing funding of this kind is important. “Climate finance from the Global North is critical. Our country should not be forced into debt to pay for a crisis we did not cause,” she said.

Arances said the continued dominance of coal plants is driven by many factors, but chiefly by the fact that policy and investment decisions had been left to the private sector, whose main consideration is profit.

Lopez said as much in another report four years later, published on the family-owned ABS-CBN News in 2020. He said the decision to shut the door on coal “meant walking away from an opportunity to make profit.”

Against this backdrop, the Lopez family’s LNG investments drew sharp criticisms. The company said it could not provide fully renewable energy solutions because of supply constraints, compounded by the declining indigenous natural gas output from Malampaya.

For ICSC’s Hernandez, the energy transition is not a question of yes or no. “The question we always ask LNG proponents is: until when? Five years, seven years? Or all the way to 2050? That’s why it’s called a transition. We’re not supposed to fully shift,” he said.

Meralco PowerGen said LNG was not an “end goal,” but rather a “bridge that allows the country to transition more securely and responsibility toward a predominantly renewable energy future.”

Others reject the detour. “Every peso poured into LNG terminals or pipelines is money stolen from the renewable systems we urgently need,” said Tan. “This so-called ‘bridge fuel’ is a dangerous distraction that risks locking us into decades of more fossil dependence.”

Arances welcomed the Lopez family’s move to reduce its stakes in LNG.

Ayala Group’s transition

Amid the expansion of coal and LNG, one conglomerate has committed to exiting fossil fuels altogether — the Ayala Corp..

Ayala is the country’s fifth largest power producer. It entered the coal business in 2011 with the construction of the South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp. (SLTEC) in Calaca, Batangas and the acquisition of a coal plant in Bataan. 

In 2020, the conglomerate announced it would fully divest from coal, even as its new SLTEC coal plant had been operating for only five years.

Its moves have been decisive. Ayala Corp. has transferred its fossil portfolio out of ACEN Corp., its energy arm, selling its Bataan coal plants and implementing voluntary early retirement on SLTEC. It is the country’s first private Energy Transition Mechanism. 

ACEN is working to reach its goal of becoming a purely renewable energy company by the end of the year, five years earlier than its 2030 commitment.

“They know where the future lies,” said La Viña, who called on other conglomerates to follow Ayala’s example. 

Arances warned that the government cannot afford to sit back and wait for voluntary pledges from private players. It must step in decisively and set the pace if the country is to meet its climate targets. — PCIJ.org