ICT and the

ronment: The Role

of ICT in the
sage of the
able Energy Bill in
the Philippines

Mina Lyn Peralta

rese Marie Rico
9/5/2009
Tilly described social movements as sustained campaigns on behalf of collective claims, multiple performances
(including public meetings, demonstrations, press releases, creating special-purpose associations, networks, or
coalitions), and concerted displays of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment (WUNC) on behalf of ac-
tivists, constituencies, and/or objects of their solicitude.1

Cammaerts and Van Audenhove saw ICT’s impact on contemporary social movements as an opportunity
structure representing a (cost-) efficient tool to mobilize beyond its constituency, and network with other orga-
nisations and/or to inform independently. They also mentioned that the Internet provides the backbone by
which direct action can be organised in a decentralised way. The internet is also able to facilitate interactive
debates, which can be linked to a strengthening and/or broadening of the public sphere.2

The research aims to study how civil society and non-government organizations used ICT to push the passing
of the Renewable Energy Bill (RE Bill) in Philippine Congress. It will explore the impact of ICT on the methods
used by these groups to promote the passage of the RE Bill and its effect on local advocacy and political partic-
ipation.

Media has actively reported on the use of ICTs in social movements. However, many of these reports are anec-
dotal and may overstate the role of mobile phones since there is not a lot of empirical data that establishes a
more direct link to perceived “outcomes” of ICT to social movements.

The environmental movement is studied because it is a pioneer of mass political movement.3 The movement
also shows a strong degree of transnationalization relating to a strong degree of virtualisation. The online is
very present and crucial at the intra-transnational level of organisation. The virtualisation of activities at this
level is very strong, whereas the real life activities are low.4

The research will be a case study focusing on role that ICT played in the passage of the Renewable Energy Bill
in the Philippine Congress. Specifically, desk/research and literature review of secondary data, previously
published documents will be conducted. There will also be review of organizational documents and key in-
formant interviews.

1 Tilly, C. (2003). Social Movements Enter the Twenty-first Century. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from Cornell University
Website: http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/sgt2/PSCP/documents/tilly2003-03.pdf
2 Cammaerts, B. and Leo Van Audenhove (2003). ICT-Usage among Transnational Social Movements in the Networked
Society: to organise, to mediate & to influence. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from London School of Economics Website:
www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EMTEL/reports/cammaerts_2003_emtel.pdf
3 Perritt, H. (1997). Is the Environmental Movement a Critical Internet Technology? Retrieved June 5, 2009, from Chica-
go-Kent College of Law Website:
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=henry_perritt
4 Cammaerts, B. and Leo Van Audenhove (2003). ICT-Usage among Transnational Social Movements in the Networked
Society: to organise, to mediate & to influence. Retrieved June 5, 2009, from London School of Economics Website:
www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EMTEL/reports/cammaerts_2003_emtel.pdf
Page 2 of 13
INTRODUCTION

The Philippines is one of the 11 countries in Southeast Asia. Its capital city is Manila,
and it is comprised of 7,107 islands. These islands composed the three major islands of
the country - Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The length of the Philippines measures
1,850 kilometers, starting from the point near the southern tip of Taiwan and ending
close to northern Borneo. Its breadth is about 965 kilometers. The country’s projected
population for 2009 is 92.23M. 5

The internet market in the Philippines is very unique. Although there are a large num-
ber of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) most of them are little more than resellers of
bandwidth.6 Only those ISPs that are telcos with facilities-based licenses are allowed to
directly provide their own national or international connectivity.7 In 2007, it was re-
ported that there have been 488 internet service providers registered with the National
Telecommunications Commission - a Philippine government regulatory agency.8

The telecommunications sector in the Philippines is also distinct since its services are
provided by private corporations. The country has ten cellular mobile telephone opera-
tor.9 As a result of the aggressive liberalization of the telecommunications market in the
early 1990s, mobile phone density and the Internet penetration rate are now running to
40 and five per cent, respectively.10

In 2008, it was reported by Yahoo! that there have been 14 million internet users in the
Philippines.11 In 2008 during the presentation of the Universal McCann Report Wave 3,
it was shared that there have been 3.7 million active internet users and 2.3M of these us-

5 National Statistics Office of the Republic of the Philippines. Retrieved August 31, 2009, from the NSO Website:
http://www.census.gov.ph
6 Minges,M. , Magpantay,E., Firth, L. and Kelly, T. (2001).International Telecommunication Union. Retrieved August 28,
2009 from the ITU Website: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/philippines/index.html
7 Ibid
8 National Telecommunications Commission, Philippines. Retrieved, August 2009, from the NTC Website:
http://portal.ntc.gov.ph/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_EBH
9 National Telecommunications Commission, Philippines. Retrieved, August 2009, from the NTC Website:
http://portal.ntc.gov.ph/wps/portal/!ut/p/.cmd/cs/.ce/7_0_A/.s/7_0_C7J/_s.7_0_A/7_0_C7J
10 Dongtotsang, D. and Sagun, R. Mobile Telephony as an Enabler of Environmental Action in the Philippines, 2006. Re-
trieved August 28, 2009 from the International Institute for Sustainable
Development:http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2006/infosoc_issd_philippines.pdf
11 Retrieved September 4, 2009, from the Internet Worlds Statistics Website:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/ph.htm
 ers are involved in owning a blog.12 In terms of mobile phone usage, it was reported
that there have been 51.795 million users for 2007 13 .
←
ICT and ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY

Far from its humble origins as a simple computer network, the Internet has reached the
forefront of technology and society interest14. It has moved from the realm of an elite
group of researchers and scientists to the center of attention of business, governments,
and the public at large.15 Prior to the mid-1990s, users perceived the Internet as a do-
main mainly for academics, scientists, and technically minded people, but the past ten
years have launched a proliferation of Internet use. 16 The World Wide Web has evolved
into an important information for tool for businesses, consumers, and society as a
whole.17

According to Earl and Schussman (2003), as cited by Petit (2004), in addition to the so-
cial movement organizations going online to publicize protest information, the emer-
gence of “e-movements” and new forms of “e-protest” and “e-activism” suggests the
importance of the Internet as an organizational tool for those interested in social change.
In their interviews with webmasters of strategic voting sites, Earl and Schussman found
an emphasis on the needs of website users (i.e., issues of privacy, legal concerns, and
ease of use) whereas leadership was downplayed. They attributed this difference to the
role of members in social movement organizations versus users in e-movements.18

In a data collected by Petit (2004) using the Google Search Engine, table 1 (please see
below) showed the number of hits a social movement category incurred.

Table 1 Total Numbers from Google Search of Social Movements19

TYPE of SOCIAL MOVEMENT Number of Hits

civil rights movement 572,000

12 Retrieved August 28, 2009 from the Universal McCann website:

http://www.universalmccann.com/Assets/UM%20Wave%203%20Final_20080505110444.pdf
13 World Fact Book, 2008. Retrieved August 28, 2009 from the CIA website:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html
14 Internet and Social Change. Retrieved: September 3, 2009. http://www.duke.edu/~djs13/pps126/
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid
17 Ibid.
18 Petit, Christine (2004). Presentation at the Annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco.
Retrieved: September 3, 2009. http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows25/irows25.htm
19 Petit, Christine (2004). Presentation at the Annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco.
Retrieved: September 3, 2009. http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows25/irows25.htm
Page 4 of 13
 TYPE of SOCIAL MOVEMENT Number of Hits

labor/labour movement 400,000

peace/anti-war movement 382,000

women's/feminist movement 266,000

environmental movement 146,000

socialist movement 52,000

communist movement 40,000

gay rights movement 37,100

human rights movement 36,500

anti-globalization movement 30,300

anarchist movement 25,100

national liberation movement 16,300

global justice movement 11,500

slow food movement 10,500

indigenous movement 8,090

fair trade movement 8,080

trade justice movement 6,750

sovereignty movement 5,310

anti-corporate movement 1,780

The environmental movement belonged in the top 5 of social movements that has pres-
ence online. With this it can be substantiated that a number of environmental organiza-
tions, groups and individual activists have been using the internet to advance their
cause. The internet offers several and diverse means of communicating environmental
advocacy to a wider public.

In a more specific example, according to Pickerill (2001) , the environmental movement

in Britain is diverse and fractionalised, and yet online communication and advocacy has
been adopted by the majority of groups within the movement 20. This ranges from the
more institutionalised non-government organisations (NGOs) such as Friends of the
Earth and Greenpeace, to the informal, looser networks of individuals involved in
groups such as Earth First!, Reclaim the Streets and McSpotlight.21

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Data gathering and research were carried out in two ways. There was a desk/research
review of secondary data on sources of national trends of ICT, renewable energy bill
advocacy and on environmental activism, and online interviews with two environmen-
tal advocates and with the Climate and Energy Campaigner of Greenpeace - Philip-
pines.

RENEWABLE ENERGY BILL ADVOCACY

The continuous environmental degradation and the negative effects of climate change
have already been felt globally. Global warming has been attributed by the Intergo-
vernmental Panel on Climate Change to the steadily increasing concentration of carbon
dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere resulting in an en-
hanced greenhouse effect.22 By far the worst offenders are outdated coal-fired power
plants around the world, which are responsible for 37-percent of all CO2 emissions.
And things are bound to get worse, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, where carbon
dioxide emissions from the power industry are expected to rise by 85% in 2012. 23 The
Philippines ranks among the most vulnerable countries when it comes to climate
change.24 Sitting on the rim of the Pacific Ocean, the archipelago is regularly battered by
storms and typhoons, the intensities of which have become alarmingly stronger in re-
cent times.25 Because of this, a number of individuals and institutions in the country ad-
vocated for an alternative clean energy.

20 Pickerill, J, M. 2001 'Weaving a green web: Environmental protest and computer mediated communication in Britain',
in F.Webster (Ed.), Culture and Politics in the Information Age, Routledge, London. Retrieved September 3, 2009 from the Jenny
Pickerill website: http://www.jennypickerill.info/webster.html
21 Ibid.
22 Climate Change and Renewable Energy: Synergies for Development, 2006. Retrieved August 28, 2009 from the Klima
Climate Change Center Website: http://www.klima.ph/announcement_board/cc_re_forum.htm
23 Ibid
24 Teske, S. (2008). energy [r]evolution: A Sustainable Philippine Energy Outlook. Greenpeace International and Euro-
pean Renewable Energy Council.
25 Ibid.
Page 6 of 13
The Philippines government, through the Department of Energy, has created a coalition
on Renewable Energy (RE). The Renewable Energy coalition is a multi-sectoral alliance
working for the passage of the Renewable Energy in the Philippines. It is composed of
industry players in RE - non-government organizations involved in advancing envi-
ronmental and sustainable development, and other institutions concerned in the use
and promotion of clean energy in the country. The RE coalition is composed of mem-
bers from the Confederation of RE Resources, Inc. (CORE) such as Aboitiz Equity Ven-
tures, the Association of Wind Energy Producers, Bronzeoak Philippines, First Philip-
pine Energy Corp., Philippine Association of Small-Scale Hydropower, Inc., Philippine
National Oil Company-Energy Development Corp. (PNOC-EDC), Renewable Energy
Association of the Philippines, Shell Solar Phil. Corp., Smith Bell Renewable Energy
Services Corp., Sta. Clara International Corp., Talisay Bioenergy, Inc., Varied Energy
Development Corp., Victorias Bioenergy, Inc; the NGO Coalition for Renewable Energy
and Sustainability (NCoRES) with its
members Approtech Asia, Manila Obser-
vatory; KLIMA, Miriam-PEACE, the Phi-
lippine Institute of Chemical Engineers,
the Philippine Network on Climate
Change, the Philippine Solar Energy Socie-
ty, Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya (SI-
BAT) and the World Wildlife Fund
(WWF)-Philippines. Others include Che-
vron Geothermal Philippines Holdings,
Inc., the National Geothermal Association
of the Philippines, Greenpeace, the Philip-
pine Sugar Millers Association and EON
Stakeholder Relations Firm.26

During the campaign for the passage of the

RE Bill, the WWF played a significant role as a communications hub for the RE Coali-
tion. They have set-up an SMS and online campaign which targeted both active SMS
and online users. Aside from the virtual advocacy campaigns. The coalition also has a
face-to-face efforts by gathering signatures from schools and local communities .

The www.powerswitch.org.ph is the online presence of the RE advocacy of WWF. The

website gives information on the importance of passing the RE bill. The Positibong Al-
ternatibo ang Renewable Energy (PARE) ni Juan website became the online signature
campaign medium of the RE Coalition.

26 Javellosa, Jeannie. 2008. A Spirited Soul - The Renewable Energy Coalition. The Philippine Star. Retrieved September 3,
2009 from The Philippines Star Website, http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=38275
Another member of the RE coalition is the Greenpeace Philippines. Greenpeace Philip-
pines has a pool of cyberactivists that helped in their online campaign for the passage of
the RE Bill. In general, online activities of Greenpeace in relation to their advocacy in-
volve - e-mail blasts, online petitions
and virtual marches. Virtual marches
involve uploading of photos by individ-
uals either through the internet or
through their mobile to the virtual
march page. By doing so, one is already
participating in the virtual march. The
virtual march had the power to reach
across boundaries of culture, language
and time to influence thousands of
people all over the world because it used the same techniques and tools that ordinary
people are using every day and put them together with Greenpeace activism.27

ICT and GREENPEACE PHILIPPINES

Greenpeace is an independent, global campaigning organization that acts to change atti-

tudes and behavior, to protect and conserve the environment, and to promote peace.
Greenpeace has been in the Philippines since the early 1990s where its primary concern
was addressing the issues on toxic wastes from the US Bases in Subic, Zambales. In
2000, the Greenpeace Philippine Office was created.

The use of ICT in Greenpeace advocacy involves internet and mobile phone utilization.
As part of their administrative
and regular function - each
official Greenpeace staff is
provided with mobile phone
and laptop by the organization.

Provision of mobile phone

comes in cheaper for the organ-
ization and convenient espe-
cially when a staff needs to re-
port an important concern in
their field operations. Laptops
are favorable for them since
there is less Carbon emission.

27 Retrieved, September 2, 2009 from The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration Website:
http://www.sofii.org/active%20site/Members%20area/WF72GPvirtualmarch.html
Page 8 of 13
In terms of advocacy, the use of e-mail in reporting environmental concerns plays a vi-
tal role in their organization. There is a dedicated person looking into their “complaint
e-mail”. The dictated person then sorts the concerns, and forward them to the appropri-
ate campaigner.

It was in 2005, that the internet presence of Greenpeace has been organized more ap-
propriately. A number of internet driven campaign started that same year. In 2006, the
Guimaras Oil spill paved way to the potential of SMS campaign in Greenpeace.

Greenpeace, however, does not partner with big telecommunication corporations. This
is to uphold one of their core values which is to ensure financial independence from po-
litical or commercial interests. In doing their advocacy through SMS, they usually out-
source a service provider outside the telcos - to avoid conflict of interest.

Greenpeace Philippines has three main campaigns - Climate and Energy, Genetic Engi-
neering Campaign and Toxics Campaign.

The involvement of Greenpeace Philippines in Renewable

Energy began in 2001, during a protest against an installation of
a proposed Coal Plant in Pulupundan, Negros Occidental. The
communities in Pulupundan have been vocal in opposing the in-
stallation of the said plant. Greenpeace Philippines helped the
community in fighting against the coal plant by providing litera-
tures and studies on the negative effects of coal plants emission, and
Greenpeace started lobbying for a clean form of energy. And be-
cause of the success of this, succeeding coal plant installation pro-
posals are being monitored by Greenpeace. Thus, they see the
passage for the Renewable Energy Bill as an answer to the call of having a clean energy.

In an interview with Ms. Amalie Conchelle Hamoy - Obusan, the Climate and Energy
Campaigner of Greenpeace Philippines, the campaign on the passage of the Renewable
Energy Bill involved multi-media approach. Volunteer advertising agencies developed
a campaign banner on Renewable Energy with Greenpeace and was telecast on free tv,
particularly in the Music TV Philippines. Online activities like e-mail blasts, online peti-
tions, and virtual marches were also used in the campaign for the passage of the RE Bill.
The organization also has subscribed into social networks such as facebook, multiply
and friendster. Their subscription into these social networks keep individuals and their
cyberactivists updated on Greenpeace activities. Because of their outreach the Green-
peace Cyberactivists play an essential role in spreading out Greenpeace advocacy
through their blogs. Though the statistics on their cyberactivists globally and nationally
were not taken into account by the researchers, the Marine Animal News blog showed
an example on the number of Greenpeace Activists participated in the campaign against
the TATA steel construction risking the sea turtles, “In the last few weeks alone over
 10,000 people have faxed Mr. Tata, calling
for a suspension of dredging at the port.”28
These numbers only reflect a particular
campaign of Greenpeace.

Aside from the multi-media platform in

their advocacy, Greenpeace Philippines still
uses the Greenpeace traditional way of
campaign which is the public and non-
violent protest on environmental issues.

LEARNINGS

The use of ICT in the passage of the Renewable Energy has contributed to a larger out-
reach in terms of spreading and magnifying awareness on the said bill.

The RE Coalition has used both SMS and Internet technology, and the turn out of the
two technologies implied that there is a better active participation from the internet us-
ers.29 Nonetheless, the traditional face-to-face and interactive campaign still plays an
important role in convincing and clarifying certain issues regarding the bill.

Greenpeace Philippines, on the other hand, is continuously evolving in terms on how

they do their campaigns. Nonetheless, the use of ICT in their daily operations and ad-
vocacy recognizes ICT as one of the tools in the materialization of their thrusts. They see
the cost-efficiency, effectivity and environmental friendliness of the tool.

The use of internet in their organization has shown the active participation of their ad-
vocates globally. The use of virtual marches is not limited to uploading photos from the
computers, it has explored the use of multi-media services in mobiles. With this, it can
be implied that a number of global advocates of Greenpeace are not just internet users
but are also techno-savvy. Greenpeace campaigns in general are dynamic.

The internet has transformed many aspects of the society. It has helped in the evolution
of the methodology in carrying out advocacy in non-government organizations. Envi-
ronmental NGOs have been quick to use the Internet's networking capacity to create

28 Retrieved September 2, 2009 from the Marine Animal News Blog:

http://marineanimalnews.blogspot.com/2009/05/tata-steel-continues-construction-olive.html
29 Interview with Roslyn Arayta, former Campaigner for Signatures - RE Coalition (2009)
Page 10 of 13
such communities and spur them to collective action. The art of advocacy rests on four
strategic elements -- communication, effective argument, public mobilization, and coali-
tion building. The Internet brings new techniques to each of those endeavors.30

Though the advent of technology continues to surge, there are still NGOs that recognize
the importance of a face-to-face interaction in campaigns.

30 Belerie, T. (2000) Old Strategy and New Tactics Drive Environmental Advocacy on the Internet, Retrieved September 2,
2009 from InfoUSA Website: http://usinfo.org/enus/economy/technology/gj06.html
REFERENCES

Arayta, Roslyn (2009). Online Interview. Philppines.

Belerie, T. (2000) Old Strategy and New Tactics Drive Environmental Advocacy on the
Internet, Retrieved September 2, 2009 from the InfoUSA Website:
http://usinfo.org/enus/economy/technology/gj06.html

Cammaerts, B. and Leo Van Audenhove (2003). ICT-Usage among Transnational Social
Movements in the Networked Society: to organise, to mediate & to influence. Retrieved
June 5, 2009, from London School of Economics Website:
www.lse.ac.uk/collections/EMTEL/reports/cammaerts_2003_emtel.pdf
Dongtotsang, D. and Sagun, R. Mobile Telephony as an Enabler of Environmental Action in
the Philippines, 2006. Retrieved August 28, 2009 from the International Institute for
Sustainable
Development:http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2006/infosoc_issd_philippines.pdf

Hamoy - Obusan, Amalie Conchelle (2009). Personal Interview. Philippines.

Internet and Social Change. Retrieved: September 3, 2009.

http://www.duke.edu/~djs13/pps126/
Internet Worlds Statistics Website: http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/ph.htm
Javellosa, Jeannie. 2008. A Spirited Soul - The Renewable Energy Coalition. The Philippine
Star. Retrieved September 3, 2009 from The Philippines Star Website,
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=38275

Marine Animal News Blog: http://marineanimalnews.blogspot.com/2009/05/tata-

steel-continues-construction-olive.html

Minges,M., Magpantay,E., Firth, L. and Kelly, T. (2001).International Telecommunica-

tion Union. Retrieved August 28, 2009 from the ITU Website:
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/philippines/index.html
National Telecommunications Commission, Philippines. Retrieved, August 2009, from
the NTC Website:
http://portal.ntc.gov.ph/wps/portal/!ut/p/.cmd/cs/.ce/7_0_A/.s/7_0_C7J/_s.7_
0_A/7_0_C7J
National Telecommunications Commission, Philippines. Retrieved, August 2009, from
the NTC Website: http://portal.ntc.gov.ph/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_EBH
Page 12 of 13
National Statistics Office of the Republic of the Philippines. Retrieved August 31, 2009,
from the NSO Website: http://www.census.gov.ph
Perritt, H. (1997). Is the Environmental Movement a Critical Internet Technology? Retrieved
June 5, 2009, from Chicago-Kent College of Law Website:
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=henry_perrit
t
Petit, Christine (2004). Presentation at the Annual meetings of the American Sociologi-
cal Association, San Francisco. Retrieved: September 3, 2009.
http://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows25/irows25.htm
Pickerill, J, M. 2001 'Weaving a green web: Environmental protest and computer me-
diated communication in Britain', in F.Webster (Ed.), Culture and Politics in the In-
formation Age, Routledge, London. Retrieved September 3, 2009 from the Jenny
Pickerill website: http://www.jennypickerill.info/webster.html

The Showcase of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration Website:

http://www.sofii.org/active%20site/Members%20area/WF72GPvirtualmarch.html
Tilly, C. (2003). Social Movements Enter the Twenty-first Century. Retrieved June 5, 2009,
from Cornell University Website:
http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/sgt2/PSCP/documents/tilly2003-03.pdf

Universal McCann website:

http://www.universalmccann.com/Assets/UM%20Wave%203%20Final_200805051
10444.pdf

World Fact Book (2008) CIA website: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-

world-factbook/geos/rp.html