THE planned expansion of the Thermal Visayas Inc. (TVI) coal power plant in Toledo, Cebu, has become Target No. 1 for local climate and anti-fossil fuel activists in recent months. This is understandable given the reasonable aspiration of the eventual elimination of fossil fuel-based electricity generation, and the expansion plan should have been an opportunity for a mature exchange of views and exploration of effective solutions. Instead, it has simply provoked a display of the worst kind of self-defeating hysteria on the part of green activists, possibly setting back the transformation of the Philippines' energy portfolio by years.

In a joint statement shared with the media and posted to Facebook last week, the barangay captains of the three barangays of Toledo City that host the TVI facility condemned protestors — specifically, a group calling itself the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice Cebu (PMCJ Cebu) for fraudulently claiming that residents of their villages had joined a demonstration protesting the plant expansion, as well as making false claims that the project was going forward without the requisite local health and environmental permits.