The DOE’s fragmented crisis strategy

Filipinos deserve competent and well-experienced hands on the country’s energy wheel; and not a Department of Energy (DOE) that reacts faster with alarm than with analysis, especially when Energy Secretary Sharon Garin slipped into an “alarmist trap” by prematurely floating that socially sensitive diesel prices could reach that P200-per-liter scare—a scenario that only aggravated public anxiety instead of the government easing tensions through measured and data-driven assessments.

- MYRNA M. VELASCO

That April 8 Congressional hearing statement from the Energy Secretary came across as uninformed guidance and a poorly timed blunder, because even as it was being delivered, global markets were already reacting to news of a United States (US)-Iran ceasefire that drove oil prices down—a clear signal that any seasoned energy official would have recognized as easing pressure on prices, not escalating alarm.

As if on cue, just days later, news of price rollbacks began dominating headlines; hence, swinging that dramatic P200-per-liter speculation from the Secretary into a less credible forecast and more of a self-inflicted fear trigger that should never have been blurted out in the first place. After all, the Energy Secretary is supposed to steady public expectations, not amplify uncertainty at the microphone.

Past the edges of the Secretary’s price-scare theatrics, the Energy department’s thin narrative on a true “whole supply chain solutions approach” stands out just as sharply, because outside Imperial Manila’s domain, consumers aren’t just crunching projections or reading forecasts; many are already struggling to secure fuel and even driving miles across towns because the empty pumps already tell a louder and harsher truth than any press releases from the DOE head office ever could.