- The Philippines is currently highly dependent on fossil fuels for energy generation, but the government has committed to reaching 50% renewables by 2050.
- The resulting energy boom — especially in Ilocos North, the president’s home province — has seen an influx of foreign investment, but also raised questions about who will bear the costs of the country’s energy transition.
- Fishers in Ilocos Norte say they worry that wind energy projects in their traditional fishing grounds will disrupt marine life and fishing routes.
- Inland, the Masamuyao Isneg Yapayao tribal council is trying to stop the expansion of a solar farm that officials say failed to obtain the tribe’s consent.
PASUQUIN, Philippines — Crouched on the beach under the hot noon sun, a fisherman flattens a black sheet of seaweed on a bamboo mat rolled out on the sand. Wearing a straw hat wide enough to shade his entire body, he tucks his legs in to avoid getting burned.
Gamet, a rare and coveted variety of seaweed local to the coasts of the Philippines’ Ilocos Norte province, is both a staple to fishing communities and a popular souvenir for travelers. But harvesting the highly sought-after seaweed can be a dangerous task. Like the better-known nori, it belongs to the Bangiaceae family of red algae and grows exclusively on the sharp, pointed rocks along the cooler waters of the northern Philippine coast.
At the other end of the beach, Ed Singson, leader of the local fishing association, has just come ashore with a bucket of fresh gamet. Taking a handful of seaweed from his bucket, he says, “We will protest on the seas for this if we have to.”
Singson, 55, and his fellow fisherfolk have learned from local authorities about plans by a foreign company to build a vast stretch of offshore wind turbines on traditional fishing grounds. They say they fear the construction, vibrations and, eventually, the completed structures could disrupt their fishing routes and local marine life.
‘Renewable energy capital’
Ilocos Norte, the northwestern tip of the Philippines and hometown of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is undergoing a radical transformation. Fossil fuels currently dominate the local energy mix, with coal alone accounting for roughly two-thirds of power generation as of 2024. But the government has committed to reaching 50% renewables by 2050.
Under the current administration, that’s put the president’s home province in pole position to become the “renewable energy capital of Southeast Asia,” with dozens of big-ticket projects.
However, local fishing and Indigenous communities see these projects as threats to their livelihoods, saying they’re worried they will be the ones to bear the burden of energy infrastructure development while receiving no real benefits.
Arvin Mangrubang, parish priest of the Philippine Independent Church (IFI) in Ilocos Norte’s Pasuquin municipality, leads Salwadan, a coalition of residents from across the province committed to environmental justice. Mangrubang says he believes the new slate of projects will lead to land grabs and the destruction of natural resources, a pattern he’s witnessed before.
“The livelihood of fisherfolk, the lands of the Indigenous, the fish and corals in our seas — all of that boundless resource has served us for generations and all of it is up for grabs,” Mangrubang says. “How many generations of people can these giant windmills serve?”
The provincial government says it’s working to mitigate any negative impacts.
Joegie Jimenez, program officer at the provincial environment department, tells Mongabay that “energy projects will really help the province economically. But we need to see to it that we don’t harm fishing communities.”
Vermillion Tagalog, a bishop with the IFI, preached a Sunday sermon about the “stewardship of creation,” the diocese’s theme for the year, saying it urges environmental vigilance among the church.
“Whatever happens to nature is reflected back on us as people. The development of these green projects should be commensurate to the destruction,” he says.
Big targets
According to a September 2025 tally by the Department of Energy (DOE), the Philippines has 1,366 active renewable energy service contracts, equivalent to a potential 141.8 gigawatts. New wind power projects alone are expected to deliver 90 GW.
Data from the agency show that 46 of these projects are in Ilocos Norte, the political stronghold of the Marcos family. Of these, 34 were awarded after Ferdinand Jr. took office in June 2022.
The province’s governor and vice governor are the president’s cousin and nephew, respectively, while other Marcos relatives and allies hold many other key positions in Ilocos Norte.
DOE Undersecretary Rowena Guevara attributes the renewable energy boom to a November 2022 amendment to the Philippines’ energy law that allows full foreign ownership of renewable energy projects. In late 2025, the DOE announced that around 20 GW of energy will be wholly owned by foreign corporations. Funding for most of the projects in Ilocos Norte comes from abroad, including Singapore, China, Denmark and Germany.
In a 2023 speech, then-Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno declared that “the Philippines is determined to be a world leader in the Race to Net Zero. And the Ilocos region will be a strategic partner in this mission.”
The provincial government set up the Ilocos Norte Investment Promotions Center (INvest) in 2021 to better attract businesses, waiving property tax for potential investors.
Jimenez credits the energy projects for their record-breaking revenue and provincial budget of almost 3 billion pesos (about $49 million) for 2026.
Power politics
“Around here, the Marcos word is law,” Mangrubang says. “And when Marcos Jr. became president, we noticed that the family had an eye on clean energy. But the question is, what do ordinary people stand to gain?”
The provincial government is attracting billions of dollars in investments for the projects. Based on publicly available data, four of the larger wind farms are already collectively worth $6.1 billion.
The province currently generates about 430 megawatts of renewable energy. The newer projects are expected to generate more than 25 times that, accounting for a tenth of the national target. This would bring the province’s total renewable generating capacity to 11.3 GW, enough for the peak demand of roughly a third of the country.
The province has a population of a little over 600,000, about 0.5% of the country’s total, and its 2026 electricity demand is estimated at less than 100 MW.
‘We’ll lose everything’
One of the projects raising concern among fishers in Pasuquin is the North Luzon offshore wind farm, dubbed BuhaWind Energy, a 350-billion-peso ($5.7 billion) joint venture between PetroGreen Energy (part of the Philippine conglomerate Yuchengco) and Denmark’s Copenhagen Energy.
Stretching over the coasts of the towns of Bangui, Burgos, Dumalneg, Pagudpud and Pasuquin, the project has been granted a 25-year lease, and its planned 20-GW capacity makes it the fourth-most-powerful green energy source in the pipeline.
Those five towns are home to 7,000 registered fisherfolk, almost half of the province’s total. Locals say the actual number is double the official census.
Tony Tabat, 69, head of Pagudpud’s Pasaleng Bay Fisherfolks Association, says no representative from BuhaWind or the government has ever consulted anyone in the village about the project’s impacts.
“Efforts like that should be prevented to protect the livelihood of the people here,” Tabat tells Mongabay in the local Ilocano language.
Vanessa Peralta, communications head for the BuhaWind project, tells Mongabay that the company recognizes concerns about livelihood. She says they wrapped up an information drive in February 2026 and found that “there’s no outright rejection.”
There are more than 30 coastal villages in the five-town stretch of BuhaWind’s turbines. Company representatives visited 19 of these villages for consultations last February, Peralta says. Pasaleng was not one of them because, according to Peralta, they only went to sites “covered by our service contract with actual wind turbines and facility components.”
During a good month, Tabat can earn around 10, 000 pesos (about $165) selling fish, but typically he makes half that amount.
Blue marlin, anchovies, tuna, dolphinfish, trevally and octopus are among the common catches out in the waters close to the coastal towns, in addition to the popular gamet seaweed. With the turbines in place, Tabat says, they’ll have to sail about 100 kilometers (60 miles) out to get a day’s catch — a dangerous distance.
“A lot of people go missing that far,” Tabat says. Families and local economies rely on the fishing trade. “We’ll lose everything. I don’t know how we can build a life somewhere else.”
BuhaWind project officials tell Mongabay that their design features large gaps between each turbine, allowing small fishing boats to pass through.
Jimenez says the company has already presented ways to allay concerns such as creating artificial reefs and mapping out fishing paths for boats to pass.
“We’ll see whatever solutions they have that could help answer questions from locals,” he says.
DOE’s Guevara acknowledges the construction will be difficult, but says that once the turbines are up and running, the fish will be “back with a vengeance.”
He attributes this to scientific findings from experiences elsewhere, such as the port of Grimsby in the U.K., where the fishing industry was revitalized after the turbines themselves became marine habitats.
“With offshore wind, large vessels won’t be able to enter. Who benefits? Small fisherfolk,” Guevara tells Mongabay.
Not everyone is as optimistic. Research by the U.K. government’s Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) found inconclusive results for either beneficial or detrimental effects of offshore wind on marine biodiversity.
Narod Eco, a scientist with the advocacy group AGHAM, says no two ecosystems are alike and that offshore wind farms have a greater chance of adversely affecting biodiversity than cultivating it.
He calls on the government to “institute more marine protected areas through community-based coastal resource management led by fisherfolk communities themselves.”
Experts from AGHAM, which stands for “Advocates of Science and Technology for the People,” say that while there’s no clear evidence yet that local habitats for gamet will suffer in the long term, they can’t rule it out.
A working study by the Ilocos Center for Research, Empowerment, and Development (ICRED), an NGO, says the noise and vibrations from the construction and operation of the wind turbines could “alter the distribution and movement of marine life, especially pelagic fish. In particular, large and fast-moving species such as yellowfin and bluefin tuna, mataan, dumadara, dorado, tanggigi, and blue marlin.”
The group notes the importance of Ilocos Norte as a migratory bird route across the Luzon Strait, linking the northern Philippines to Taiwan.
“Occupying approximately 754 square kilometers [291 square miles], the project could displace birds within the area and up to 10-24 kilometers [6-15 miles] away,” it says.
Jimenez says the BuhaWind project might include “flight diverters” into its engineering design. “The company said that they might be willing to shut down the turbines during the peak migration season,” he says.
Peralta says the developer is still conducting its feasibility study, which could take several years, a period it hopes can be used to allay concerns from local fisherfolk. The entire project timeline could stretch up to 10 years, she says.
“[Fishing grounds] could be affected, but we don’t know yet. It’s speculative,” Peralta says. “That’s something we want to focus on in studying the situation.”
Unpermitted expansion
About 7 km (4 mi) away, an hour’s drive from the coast of Bangui town up a dirt road, lies a vast human-made clearing: a big, light-brown bald patch on an otherwise green hillside.
Joseph Padama, 39, chief of the Masamuyao Isneg Yapayao tribe, stands forlorn over the hills in Burgos and Bangui that were once an orchard of mango trees for his people. Today, it’s the site of a future solar farm spanning more than 200 hectares (about 500 acres), dry and dusty from construction by developer Energy Logics Development Inc (ELPI) that began in 2018without the tribe’s consent.
“If all this weren’t here right now, we’d be grazing cows and harvesting fruit,” Padama says.
Before construction began, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) declared the planned facility did not overlap with ancestral domain. The NCIP later acknowledged that there was indeed an overlap with Masamuyao land, and informed the company that it would have to seek tribal consent. By then, however, several solar panels had already been put in place.
Padama has filed several petitions, all of which have gone unanswered. The latest, filed in October 2025, sought a cease-and-desist order against the project. Today, he says he fears that his pleas will continue to be ignored while the solar farm continues expansion.
“The process was bypassed. We’ll keep reminding the government of that,” Padama tells Mongabay. “The NCIP needs to act faster. The hills, trees and rivers of our tribe are being taken right in front of us.”
ELPI’s solar farm has been expanded by its sister company, Chinese firm Nanchao Renewable Energy. Nanchao began cutting 1,500 mature trees and nearly 200 saplings in October 2025 to build a solar farm in conjunction with ELPI’s facility.
NCIP officials tell Mongabay that the Indigenous commission requested in January 2026 that both ELPI and Nanchao defer their operations until requirements for them to continue on ancestral domain were granted.
When Mongabay visited the site in mid-February, ELPI and Nanchao’s operations and construction had continued. Neither company responded to Mongabay’s requests for comments.
“They aren’t cooperating. It’s a violation,” Jifford Rosqueta, the NCIP regional legal officer, tells Mongabay. “Their applications are incomplete, with lots of inconsistencies.”
The projects cannot be reversed. But Rosqueta says the companies will incur fines, “retroactively from the time they began construction without consent.”
Joanna Sta. Isabel, Asia network coordinator for advocacy group 350.org, says companies should “respect community rights, including ancestral land rights, and avoid causing ecological harm such as deforestation.”
She cites the Philippines’ long-standing dependency on fossil fuels as one of the reasons behind its “chronic underdevelopment.”
350.org is pushing for a “fast but fair” transition away from fossil fuels in the country. But because the Philippine energy sector is highly privatized, Sta. Isabel says social justice often takes a back seat. Instead, she pushes for community involvement: “Solar power can enable new democratic forms of energy ownership, such as community cooperatives where people, rather than markets, decide how much energy to produce and consume.”
Back on the shores of Pasuquin, Singson wonders about the fate of other Ilocos Norte natives: “What will become of us?”
He says the government rarely listens, and worries that the waste from the construction of the wind farm will poison the seaweed. “We can’t allow it,” Singson declares, before quietly pushing his boat back into the sea.
Banner image: Ed Singson shows off the gamet from his bucket. Image by Michael Beltran for Mongabay.
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Citation:
Gill, A. B., Bremner, J., Vanstaen, K., Blake, S., Mynott, F., & Lincoln, S. (2024). Limited evidence base for determining impacts (or not) of offshore wind energy developments on commercial fisheries species. Fish and Fisheries, 26(1), 155-170. doi:10.1111/faf.12871
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