LAST weekend, a rumor began circulating among people in the energy sector that current Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, who has only been on the job since July, will be replaced by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as soon as the one-year ban after an election on appointments of failed politicians expires in May.
This potential development was sufficiently alarming that it turned up as a blind item or two in the papers on Monday and Tuesday this week, with the alleged replacement for Garin described as an ex-congressman who figured prominently in legislative investigations into extrajudicial killings under former president Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) scandal and alleged crimes of Vice President Sara Duterte. This individual was also noted for being “a thorn in the side” of the power sector, leading a congressional shakedown of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and opposing the franchise renewal for Meralco, the country’s largest electricity distributor.
I don’t do blind items. After spending a good part of Monday afternoon canvassing my extensive web of industry and political contacts, I was able to confirm that my guess of who the unnamed individual was — which took me all of about 10 seconds to make after reading what others had written — is former Laguna representative Danilo “Dan” Fernandez.
At this point, let me make the very important disclaimer that as of right now (very early in the morning on Tuesday, Feb. 3), all of this is speculation. There have been no statements nor other information from any official source, including Malacañang or the Department of Energy (DOE), that would confirm or even imply that Fernandez is on deck to take over the DOE.
On the other hand, we all know how things work here; where there’s smoke, there’s always fire. The fact that the rumor has become so widespread so quickly among many knowledgeable people — the entire energy industry, in fact — means that it is probably exactly what is intended by President Marcos. Or at the very least, the mere suggestion of the possibility is so horrifying that it triggered a panic.
Make no mistake, the possibility is indeed horrifying. Unless it is Marcos’ objective to completely derail energy development in the Philippines for at least the next decade, there could not possibly be anyone less suitable for the post of energy secretary than Dan Fernandez.
Fernandez, a former actor by profession and an optometrist by education, has been a fixture in Laguna politics for the past 25 years, having served on the provincial board, as vice governor and mayor of Santa Rosa, as well as being Santa Rosa’s representative in Congress. The reason he is available to be considered for the DOE, or any other post once the post-election cooling-off period ends in May is because he lost his race for governor of Laguna last year, placing third behind the eventual winner Sol Aragones. He was among a number of candidates summoned by the Commission on Elections to answer vote-buying allegations in the run-up to the May 2025 election, but those accusations were eventually regarded as typical campaign shenanigans and dismissed.
In Congress, he made his mark in two ways; first, as one of the co-chairmen of the so-called quad committee that held an inquisition into Duterte-era extrajudicial killings and POGO-related crimes in 2024, and second as a vocal enemy of NGCP and Meralco. Thus, the working theory of the rumor mill is that Fernandez is being considered for the DOE as a reward for being a loyal attack dog against the Duterte opposition, and because there is pressure being applied on the president by people in both the Cabinet and among his trusted group of back porch advisors to “do something” about NGCP and the 40-percent stake in it held by the State Grid Corp. of China.
Again, everything here is speculation, but if that is at all true, it is a brutal indictment of the president, who, if he appoints Fernandez, will have demonstrated that he neither understands nor cares about maintaining and cultivating the country’s most critical economic sector. Not only does Fernandez have absolutely no relevant qualifications for what is probably the most technocratic Cabinet position, his brief moment in the spotlight as a self-appointed fiscalizer of the energy industry was an exercise in pathetic demagoguery. The accusations he hurled against both the NGCP and Meralco were quickly and soundly refuted, and in Meralco’s case, rather hilariously, his errors were publicly called out by a couple of consumer watchdog groups that ordinarily jump at any chance to rake Meralco over the coals.
What Marcos — and every president before him with the exception of the late Fidel Ramos — does not seem to grasp, and the advice he is not getting from intelligent advisors who should know better, is that the biggest Achilles’ heel among several that the Philippines has in attracting development investment, regardless of the sector, is lack of policy continuity. Under Marcos, for the first time in a long while, there has been continuity in the energy environment, despite the Cabinet shake-up in the middle of last year that saw former energy secretary and now Environment Secretary Raphael Lotilla replaced with then-energy undersecretary Sharon Garin. It is critical in energy in particular, because investments have long lead times and even longer return periods.
Turning the DOE into a door prize for political loyalty, and worse, even considering awarding that prize to an unqualified hack who has demonstrated only reckless hostility for the industry is a recipe for disaster that would reach far beyond the energy industry itself. The best thing that can happen now, in fact the only thing that must happen, is for the vehement denials that will surely follow this discussion to turn out to be true come the end of May.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
