Whose energy, whose future? Building a just transition from the ground up in the Philippines

In the Philippines, energy is felt long before it is measured.

It is felt in the heat trapped inside crowded homes during power outages. In the silence of fishing boats stalled by changing shorelines. In classrooms where young people learn about climate disasters only after they have already lived through them. And in farming villages where a single power outage can mean spoiled harvests and lost income.

Communities have been told that renewable energy is the solution to the country’s overlapping crises of climate vulnerability, high electricity costs, and dependence on fossil fuels. Solar, wind, and other technologies are framed as inevitable progress and as symbols of a cleaner and safer future.

But for many Filipinos, the transition has not felt clean, safe, or fair. Across urban-poor communities, lakeshore villages, provincial schools, and agricultural barangays, people are asking the same questions: Who decides what kind of energy projects are built? Who benefits? And who bears the cost?

Reboot Philippines and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC), together with Oxfam Pilipinas and supported by the Influencing Just Energy Transition (I-JET) in the ASEAN Project, have accompanied communities as they confront these questions, not as passive recipients of information but as decision makers, organizers, and leaders. What emerges from Manila, Laguna, Bacolod, and Camarines Norte is not a collection of isolated interventions but a shared movement rooted in lived experience.

This is the story of that movement.

The local movements that spell the difference

Where the city throws its waste and its people

At the northern edge of Manila, near the shoreline of Manila Bay, stands a community long defined by what the city discarded.

For decades, Smokey Mountain was Manila’s largest dumpsite, a towering heap of garbage that burned constantly under the sun. Thousands of families lived and worked there, scavenging recyclables to survive amid smoke, toxins, and danger. When the dumpsite was officially closed, the community was renamed Paradise Heights, a hopeful name for a place still marked by deep poverty and resilience.

Today, life in Smokey Mountain is shaped by improvisation and care. Concrete housing blocks rise beside clusters of makeshift homes built from wood and tin. Narrow alleys double as social spaces. In small pockets of soil and recycled containers, residents grow eggplants, okra, and leafy greens as their quiet act of food security and dignity.

Most families continue to rely on recycling and waste picking for income, working with junk shops and the local Materials Recovery Facility. For years, they have played an unrecognized role in diverting waste away from landfills, helping the city manage its garbage problem from the margins.

Then, without warning, the community learned about a proposed 100‑megawatt Waste‑to‑Energy (WTE) incinerator to be built nearby.

There were no explanations and no meaningful consultations. Information spread through rumors, photocopied documents, and word of mouth. Some residents received papers offering money in exchange for demolishing their own homes without clarity on relocation, compensation, or safety.

To project proponents and city officials, WTE was presented as a renewable solution to Manila’s waste crisis. But for the people of Smokey Mountain, it meant something else entirely: burning garbage, toxic emissions, the destruction of recycling‑based livelihoods, and the displacement of thousands of families.

“Ilang dekada na ka‑partner namin ang Maynila sa paglilihis ng mga basura sa landfill,” said Nanay Elena Plaza, a mother and a community leader at the Nagkakaisa at Nagdadamayang Marala Organization. “Ngayon, tinatrato na rin kami bilang basura at hindi bilang kapwa tao,” she added.

Her words cut to the heart of the issue. The same system that relied on their labor was now prepared to erase their presence.

Fears deepened when residents learned that PhilEco, the company behind the project through its subsidiary Manila Integrated Environment Corp., had previously been penalized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for leaking waste into Manila Bay. Trust was already thin; now it was nearly nonexistent.

For many, especially women, informal workers, and queer residents, the sense of exclusion was familiar. But this time, the consequences felt irreversible.

From silence to resistance

The turning point did not come from a single protest or court filing. It came slowly, through conversations held in cramped homes, under makeshift tents, and in shared community spaces.

With support from Reboot Philippines, grassroots education sessions began in Smokey Mountain, Happyland, and neighboring barangays. Residents learned about climate change, waste management, the health impacts of incineration, and the principles of a just energy transition (JET), a framework that insists that energy solutions must protect livelihoods, health, and human rights. For the first time, people who had been spoken about for decades were finally being spoken with.

Out of these engagements, two community-led organizations emerged. The Manila Anti‑Incinerator Alliance (MAIA) brought together urban-poor leaders and organizations directly threatened by the WTE project, grounding resistance in lived experience. The Manila Youth for Climate Action (MYCA), meanwhile, grew from a Training of Trainers program that equipped young people with organizing skills and climate justice analysis.

MAIA and MYCA did not exist merely to oppose a project but to reclaim voice. MYCA members from Youth for Better Baseco, for instance, successfully filed a resolution with the National Anti‑Poverty Commission, demanding genuine dialogue on the WTE proposal. Moreover, barangay‑level Sangguniang Kabataan leaders began exploring small‑scale renewable energy alternatives, challenging the narrative that incineration was the only path forward.

“Dahil sa MYCA at MAIA, naririnig na ang boses ng komunidad at kabataan. Mas maraming tao ang nagiging mulat sa tunay na epekto ng WTE; hindi ito solusyon, kundi panganib sa kalusugan, kabuhayan, at tirahan,” said Pochollo, a MYCA campaigner.

For Smokey Mountain residents, the struggle went beyond stopping a facility. For them, it was about recognition: the right to exist, to decide, and to imagine a future where Smokey Mountain is known not for waste, but for resilience.

That insistence on dignity would soon echo far beyond Manila.

On the lake, the stakes are different but the questions are the same

Several hours south of the capital, along the shores of Laguna de Bay, the country’s largest freshwater lake, another energy project was quietly reshaping lives.

A proposed 2,000‑hectare floating solar project promised clean power at an unprecedented scale. For policymakers and developers, it symbolizes innovation. But for fisherfolk whose lives depend on the lake, it raises urgent questions. Would fishing grounds shrink? Who would control access to the water? What would happen to livelihoods passed down through generations?

Before I‑JET, fisherfolk across Laguna were divided. Some welcomed the floating solar project, hoping for jobs or compensation. Others opposed it outright. Many were simply unsure, lacking access to clear information.

Reboot Philippines chose not to force consensus. Instead, it anchored the work on Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), not as a formality but as a process of empowerment. Fisherfolk gathered to learn about the project’s technical aspects, environmental implications, and legal frameworks. More importantly, they were given space to talk to one another and to surface fears, hopes, and non‑negotiables.

Rather than framing the issue as “approve or reject,” communities identified points of contention and paired each with solutions they proposed themselves. These included demands around access, benefit‑sharing, environmental safeguards, and long‑term accountability. The result was a unified manifesto, adopted collectively by fisherfolk organizations. For the first time, they could present a clear, solutions‑based position to duty‑bearers and developers—no longer fragmented and no longer easily dismissed.

This process helped reorganize both the provincial fisherfolk council and a lake‑wide federation, representing an estimated 13,000 fisherfolk around Laguna de Bay.

As in Smokey Mountain, the shift was profound. Communities moved from being treated as obstacles to development, to being recognized, at least by one another, as legitimate partners whose consent mattered.

Youth refusing to inherit a broken system

In Bacolod City, the energy crisis was felt most sharply during disasters. Typhoons brought flooding and prolonged blackouts, while heat waves intensified. During Typhoon Tino, entire communities were left without electricity for weeks, exposing how fragile the energy system remained despite national commitments to renewable power.

Bacolod sits within Negros Occidental, a province declared coal‑free in 2019, following strong youth‑led movements. Yet for many young people, that victory felt incomplete. The promise of a just transition, one that would protect communities and create new opportunities, had not yet materialized.

A recurring realization emerged during I‑JET engagements: Most students learned about climate change and JET outside their schools. Without institutional support, climate education remained fragmented and optional.

Through I‑JET, Reboot Philippines trained 30 youth campaigners through learning sessions and a Training of Trainers program. They studied climate science, energy systems, JET principles, and campaigning, not as abstract concepts but as tools for action.

These young leaders returned to their schools and communities with a new sense of purpose. They organized forums, influenced student governments, and pushed administrators to take energy justice seriously.

Their momentum helped support the first Renewable Energy Week in Negros Occidental, institutionalized through Provincial Executive Order No. 04‑09, Series of 2024, declaring the third week of May as Renewable Energy Week. The initiative brought together provincial government, civil society organizations (CSOs), academe, and youth, embedding renewable energy into the province’s public calendar.

Some schools began discussing solarization; others drafted environmental bills. Youth leaders who advanced into higher positions carried JET advocacy into institutional planning, ensuring continuity beyond individual campaigns.

In Bacolod, I‑JET proved that when young people are equipped and trusted, they do not wait for permission to lead.

When energy powers survival

In Barangay Malaya in Labo, Camarines Norte, energy injustice was quieter but no less urgent. Women farmers struggled with high electricity costs. Power interruptions disrupted agricultural processing and community coordination. During disasters, the lack of reliable electricity turned barangay halls into vulnerable spaces instead of sanctuaries.

Decisions about energy were centralized, leaving grassroots organizations as spectators despite being on the frontlines of climate impacts. Reboot Philippines, hence, approached Barangay Malaya with a different question: What would energy transition look like if it strengthened, rather than replaced, community systems?

By integrating renewable energy, agriculture, and disaster resilience, the project demonstrated immediate and tangible benefits. The Barangay Local Government Unit allocated its development funds to solarize the barangay hall and nearby facilities, ensuring clean and uninterrupted power during emergencies.

At the same time, women, farmers, and youth were trained and organized into JET advocates, forming provincial platforms such as the Climate Action Network and the Camarines Norte Green Covenant Network. Nearly 300 faith‑based organizations, CSOs, youth formations, and government agencies endorsed the Green Covenant, calling for a fair, fast, and feminist energy transition grounded in participation and care.

The call for a JET Council also reached municipal and provincial levels, laying the groundwork for longer‑term governance reforms.
 

From the ground to the halls of power

What communities in Smokey Mountain, Laguna de Bay, Bacolod, and Camarines Norte were confronting was not just a series of isolated projects. Beneath the surface, they were facing the same structural problem: energy decisions in the Philippines are still largely made without the meaningful participation of those most affected.

Urban-poor families were excluded from consultations; fisherfolk struggled to assert consent; youth were left out of formal decision-making spaces; and farmers and women were treated as beneficiaries rather than partners.

The question, then, was not how to organize communities but how to ensure their voices reach the national level, where energy policy is written, debated, and enforced. This is where the work of the LRC became crucial.

While Reboot Philippines worked alongside communities to build power from the ground up, LRC focused on opening (and reshaping) the spaces where national energy decisions are made. Through the Sustainable Renewable Energy (SRE) Network, LRC helped create a bridge between grassroots realities and policy reform. Rather than positioning a single organization as the voice of energy justice, LRC brought together a network of networks: CSOs, people’s organizations, women’s groups, labor advocates, environmental groups, and policy experts working on energy and just transition.

The aim was both simple and ambitious: to clarify what JET and SRE mean in practice, based on lived experience. Through national forums, expert meetings, and sectoral consultations, including focused discussions on gender, participants wrestled with questions that echoed the struggles on the ground: What does renewable energy look like when it centers people, not profits? How can energy policy protect workers, women, Indigenous Peoples, fisherfolk, and farmers? How can participation be institutionalized, rather than treated as optional?

These were not abstract debates. Stories from communities—like those resisting incineration in Manila, negotiating consent in Laguna, or building local energy models in Camarines Norte—shaped the discussions and grounded policy conversations in real consequences.

Translating voices into law

As the convening continued, the work moved from conversation to consolidation. Inputs from CSOs, grassroots groups, women’s formations, labor sectors, and key government stakeholders were gathered and synthesized into a stakeholder version of the SRE and Just Transition Bill. This version aimed to reflect not only technical policy gaps but also the demands repeatedly raised by communities: participation, protection of livelihoods, gender justice, labor rights, environmental safeguards, and accountability.

The bill was eventually submitted and filed at the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy, marking a significant milestone. For many advocates, it was the first time that principles long articulated at the margins were formally introduced into legislative debate.

At the same time, members of the SRE Network began engaging more directly in Technical Working Groups (TWGs) and policy discussions related to energy transition planning. Dialogues opened with key national agencies, including the Department of Energy, DENR, Climate Change Commission, and Department of Labor and Employment. Central to these engagements was a consistent insistence on participatory policy processes, the same principle communities had been fighting for at the local level.

Even as national legislation continues to evolve, the impact of the SRE Network is already visible. LRC and its partners have conducted community paralegal trainings on SRE in provinces such as Batangas, Nueva Ecija, and Negros. These trainings strengthen legal literacy at the community level, enabling people to understand energy projects, assert rights, and engage proactively before conflicts escalate.

At the policy level, CSO engagement has helped broaden discussions within the DENR-led JET framework, ensuring that social and environmental justice considerations are not sidelined.

Perhaps, most importantly, conversations are now emerging around localizing JET policies, connecting national frameworks back to provinces, municipalities, and barangays, where implementation ultimately takes place. In this way, the arc bends back toward the communities where the story began.

One struggle, many scales

Taken together, the work of Reboot Philippines, LRC, and Oxfam Pilipinas through the I‑JET Project shows that just transition cannot succeed at only one level. Community organizing without policy reform risks being ignored, while policy reform without grassroots grounding risks repeating harm.

From Smokey Mountain’s resistance to false solutions, to fisherfolk asserting consent in Laguna, to youth shaping institutional culture in Bacolod, to farmers and women building local energy models in Camarines Norte—these struggles gain durability when they are carried into national spaces. And from the halls of Congress to government agencies, policies gain legitimacy when they are shaped by the people whose lives they will affect.

The story of I‑JET in the Philippines is still unfolding. Bills are still debated; projects are still proposed; and communities continue to organize. But one shift is already clear. Energy transition in the Philippines is no longer only about changing technologies but changing power relations. And in that shift, communities are no longer waiting at the margins; they are stepping into the center of the conversation.

What began as a small barangay initiative sent ripples outward, proving that when communities lead, policy can follow.

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I-JET receives support from the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).