Mr. Chair, fellow Board Members:

Thank you for your unanimous voting. Borrowing from President Duterte’s words: Now that you have elected me (of course, notwithstanding the President’s endorsement), it’s my time to seek your support to make things happen within the next 127 days and until our replacements have properly taken their seats. As Presidential appointees – we are all in this together and we hope to do justice to our appointments before the court of public opinion. If this was a basketball game – we are in the proverbial “last two minutes”.

So briefly in the interest of time – the following are the urgent tasks at hand given the VUCA energy world that is now engulfing us, the short description for the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous energy landscape we find ourselves in and together asked to urgently provide guidance and leadership as the Philippine National Oil Company:

  • How PNOC can help consumers mitigate their fuel expenses
  • How PNOC can ensure continuity of fuel supply to vulnerable sectors
  • How PNOC can ensure value preservation, if not value addition to its assets: like its banked gas, its real properties (Joint Energy Center redevelopment, Batangas ESB, Bataan Industrial Park), Malampaya deep water gas-to-power infrastructure that will be taken-over by the government after 23 February 2024.

Our initial thoughts moving forward starting from those nearest us are the following:

  1. The Chairs of PNOC Board Committees (Risk, Governance and Audit Committees) to feel free to provide guidance and advice through yours truly which will be cascaded to all SVPs and units under them for processing and follow-through;
  2. PNOC to close ranks with EC and RC as a unified front in the areas of selected government corporate participation in the upstream energy resource development (including conventional, RE and alternative energy resources), downstream oil, gas & coal, RE power generation and energy efficiency;
  3. Close collaboration with all the DOE Bureaus (all DOE Bureaus and Offices: EPPB, ERDB, OIMB, EPIMB, REMB, EUMB, IPO) and other Energy Family Members (PSALM, NPC, NEA, Transco) in areas related to PNOC and its subsidiaries EC and RC, starting with critical oil industry information sharing and public information, education and communication on energy costs and efficiency;
  4. Tap the private sector and other public entities (eg NDC, PEZA) as corporate development partners in:
    • filling-in strategic industry gaps (eg strategic fuel reserve, ancillary power reserve, efficiency in govt buildings);
    • new and emerging areas, eg hydrogen, SMRs, small-scale natural gas distribution for island electrification.

That’s my short thank you and “damay tayong lahat” speech. Mabuhay po tayong lahat.