Safe passage won’t fill our tanks

The Philippines got what it asked for. On April 2, Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro secured Iran’s assurance that Philippine-flagged vessels, energy shipments, and Filipino seafarers would be allowed safe, unhindered, and toll-free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. No fees. No obstruction. It was a diplomatic win — quick, clean, and frankly overdue.

But Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, to her credit, did not pretend it was a solution. “This is not a perfect solution, and it does not eliminate all risks,” she said. She also made clear it would not bring fuel prices down anytime soon. That kind of candor is rare from Philippine officials, and it deserves acknowledgment. It also deserves follow-through.

Because the numbers are brutal. Year-to-date net increases have now reached PHP 90.05 per liter for diesel, PHP 48.20 for gasoline, and PHP 78.10 for kerosene — across 13 adjustment rounds in barely three months. Industry projections for the coming week point to another PHP 17 to PHP 19 per liter jump in diesel, which could push retail prices to PHP 165 per liter. Premium diesel may breach PHP 170. These are no abstract or cold numbers. For the jeepney driver in Jaro, the fisherman off Guimaras, the cargo operator hauling rice across Panay — this spells the difference between working and abject poverty.

The safe-passage deal addresses one layer of the crisis: supply route risk. Certainly, that matters. More than 20,000 Filipino seafarers were stranded in the strait before this arrangement, and the Philippines imports 98 percent of its crude from the Middle East. Garin herself explained the domino logic: even fuel sourced from Singapore or South Korea traces back to crude that passes through Hormuz. Close the chokepoint, and the whole chain seizes. The arrangement with Tehran does not eliminate that vulnerability, but it reduces the odds of a worst-case disruption. That is not nothing, of course.

It is also not nearly enough. The Philippines holds roughly 45 days of fuel supply — half the 90-day minimum the International Energy Agency recommends for major oil importers. The country has no permanent strategic petroleum reserve; it relies on a mandated 30-day buffer from private importers. Senate Bill 1934, filed by Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, would create a proper national reserve, but it remains in committee. The PHP 20 billion released from the Malampaya fund is emergency procurement, not infrastructure. Meanwhile, Thailand caps diesel prices through its Oil Fuel Fund. Vietnam slashed import tariffs to zero. Indonesia has domestic refining capacity. The Philippines has none of these tools or has not enforced the needed actions. We declared a national energy emergency — the first country in the world to do so in this crisis — and still have no structural answer to a structural problem.

The structural answer is obvious and overdue: accelerate the shift to renewable energy. Solar already accounts for only about 3 percent of electricity generation, according to Ember data, even though the Philippines has some of the highest solar irradiance in Southeast Asia. BloombergNEF found that utility-scale solar is now the cheapest source of electricity generation in the country, with costs ranging from USD 35 to USD 72 per megawatt-hour — below both coal and gas. The DOE’s Green Energy Auction has committed thousands of megawatts of new renewable capacity, and 22 projects totaling 1,471 megawatts are being fast-tracked to the grid. But the transport sector — which absorbs two-thirds of all petroleum consumed nationally and moves 40 million passengers daily — remains almost entirely fossil-dependent. Solar panels on rooftops will not fuel a jeepney.

That gap is where policy imagination needs to go. Fuel subsidies for public transport operators, an accelerated electric vehicle rollout beyond Metro Manila, and a real strategic petroleum reserve — not a one-time purchase — are the minimum. The Hormuz arrangement buys time but not resilience. And the next disruption — whether it comes from the Middle East, the South China Sea, or a climate-driven supply shock — will find us exactly where we are now: 98 percent dependent, 45 days from empty, and hoping diplomacy holds.

Secretary Garin said her commitment is “simple: to continue providing clear, accurate, and timely information.” Good. Now do the hard part.