The Department of Energy is the executive department of the Philippine government responsible for preparing, integrating, manipulating, organizing, coordinating, supervising and controlling all plans, programs, projects and activities of the Government relative to energy exploration, development, utilization, distribution and conservation.
History
The Department of Energy was created by then President Marcos as he issued Presidential Decree No. 1206 which created the Ministry of Energy and attached the National Power Corporation and Philippine National Oil Company to this new agency. The Ministry and its two bureaus remained intact but was downgraded into a mere Office of Energy Affairs—headed by Wenceslao de la Paz and reporting to then Deputy Executive Secretary for Energy Catalino Macaraig, Jr. based in Malacanang—during the regime of President Corazon Aquino. During the regime of President Fidel V. Ramos, the Department was created due to otherwise known as the Department of Energy Act of 1992. The Department was vested additional powers and functions under pertinent energy and power-related legislations, such as Republic Act No. 9136 or the "Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001", RA No. 9367 or "Biofuels Act of 2006", and RA No. 9513 or "Renewable Energy Act of 2008.
Organization
The Department is headed by the Secretary of Energy who is assisted by three Undersecretaries and three Assistant Secretaries. Under the Department are the Administrative Service, Financial Service, Information Technology and Management Service, Legal Service and Energy Research Testing and Laboratory Service. The Department is composed of the following bureaus:
Due to the rapid growth of the country's population and the interrelated growing of the country's demand for energy, the Department of Energy introduced its Philippine Energy Plan 2009–2030. The plan for the period 2009–2030 mentions three broad policy thrusts based on the concept of enabling better energy choices for a better quality of life. On April 28, 2010, Director Jesus Tamang of the Energy Policy and Planning Bureau explained that keeping the self-sufficiency level on nearly 60% will be challenging, but he also stated that a way to counter-streer this massive population growth was the country's future investments in new projects that are targeted in the plan. The DOE's proposal consists of these following three principles that will have an important impact within the next 20 years on the country's energy future:
Expand reach through information, education and communication
Establish cross-sector monitoring mechanism in cooperation with other national government agencies, academe, local government units, non-government organizations and other local and international organizations
