AT The Manila Times' Energy Forum on March 20, the overall message about the Philippines' energy landscape was fairly upbeat. A great deal has been accomplished in recent years, and development work that is either planned or already underway in various areas — generation, transmission, regulation and the energy market — broadly suggests that the Philippines is moving in the right direction for energy security, though the road ahead is still quite long. At the next big energy forum, the Philippine Electric Power Industry Forum, hosted by the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines in Iloilo on April 5, I expect to hear more of the same.

However, the gross picture hides a lot of troubling fine details, things that do not necessarily come out in presentations or panel discussions in front of conference audiences when everyone is trying to be positive but do emerge in smaller conversations. The energy environment is a complex web with many moving parts, so a few bumps along the road to energy security should be expected. Some of these problems, however, are huge gaping potholes that could bring progress to a halt.