IT did not take long for the ridiculously heterodox ideas to save energy to start emerging from Congress with the formal declaration of an “energy emergency” by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday, but the one offered by Davao Oriental Rep. Cheeno Almario is an early frontrunner in the race to the bottom. Almario has filed House Resolution 893, which calls on the Department of Trade of Industry (DTI) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to study the possibility of ordering malls to reduce their operating hours while the emergency is in effect. This suggestion, which was obviously made without any basic research or even everyday awareness of daily life and business in the Philippines, will accomplish little to nothing except to impose additional hardships.
In arguing for his proposal, Almario said, “We cannot wait until the full impact reaches Filipino consumers. Proactive conservation measures can help soften the blow of rising fuel costs.”
Noting that shopping malls are among the largest consumers of electricity due to continuous air-conditioning, lighting, escalators, elevators and other energy-intensive systems, Almario went on to say that “[r]educing operating hours even by two to three hours daily could significantly lower electricity consumption, reduce operational expenses for businesses, and contribute to national energy conservation efforts.” Shorter mall hours could indirectly help to reduce fuel consumption by limiting unnecessary travel by private vehicles and public transportation during late operating hours, he added.
“This is not anti-business. On the contrary, it promotes efficiency, responsible energy use, and economic prudence at a time when global developments are placing pressure on energy markets,” Almario said. “If we begin making responsible adjustments now, we can help protect Filipino families from the worst effects of global fuel price increases.”
Let’s break this mess down. First of all, the impact of rising fuel costs on Filipino consumers is manifested in three direct ways: increasing costs of transportation; increasing costs of food and basic commodities due to the increasing costs of transportation; and longer-term, potential shortages of food and some basic commodities due to supply constraints on some inputs, such as fertilizer. The potential consequences of all of this on a larger scale are a downturn in consumer spending and a decrease in overall productivity, leading to a period of economic stagnation.
Proactive conservation measures can indeed help, but on a direct level; by taking steps to reduce energy usage, a consumer — whether it’s an individual, a household, a small business, a public institution, or a large business — can reduce one’s own costs. Those conservation measures, while certainly very prudent and something that should be encouraged as strenuously as possible, only contribute to the national situation in the sense that those who are practicing them are helping themselves, rather than needing direct assistance from the government.
Mall operators, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, are conspicuously absent from the people and sectors lining up for emergency government subsidies. There are good reasons for this. Mall operators have for years been proactive in practicing conservation measures. Yes, they do use a lot of energy, but with few exceptions, mall operators and the operators of other large commercial establishments have procedures in place. Many are enrolled to interruptible load programs, which disconnect them from the grid in times of tight electricity supply, since they have their own generators. Many of them have invested heavily in the past few years in rooftop solar systems, in order to reduce electricity costs and add a bit of energy security.
Electricity supply is not the current problem, and even if it was, there are already systems in place as far as malls are concerned to reduce their burden on the system. Fuel costs are the problem, and it is possible that fuel supply soon will be, but even then the nation’s electricity supply is very unlikely to be put at risk.
Mandating shorter mall hours to address the non-problem of electricity supply is, to put it kindly, stupid and harmful. It constrains already-struggling retailers’ abilities to generate revenue, which in turn leads to job or work hour reductions, further reducing workers’ incomes at a time when costs are rising. And, if conservation is the concern, then allowing people to visit malls means they are not using energy in their own homes.
This is one instance where a bad idea is truly worse than none at all. We would suggest that Representative Almario and his colleagues in Congress reflect on what they can do themselves to conserve energy — such as not using multi-vehicle convoys to move around Metro Manila’s roads, for example — and lead by example rather than ill-conceived dictates.