PASTORAL STATEMENT
March 4, 2026
Statement of Caritas Philippines
War, Fossil Fuels, and the Urgent Call for an Energy Conversion
Caritas Philippines expresses grave concern over the escalating violence in the Middle East, particularly the military strikes involving the United States and Israel against Iran, and the growing threat of a wider regional war.
This war cannot be justified by the language of deterrence or preemption. The continuing military confrontation risks plunging millions more into suffering, displacement, and instability.
As Pope Leo XIV warned in his Message for the 2026 World Day of Peace, “Far beyond the principle of legitimate defense, such confrontational logic now dominates global politics, deepening instability and unpredictability day by day.”
War in a region already scarred by decades of armed conflict is an unjust assault on human dignity. It weakens the moral foundations of the international order and undermines the primacy of diplomacy and dialogue. Civilians always pay the highest price. Overseas Filipino workers and their families now face uncertainty, fear, and possible displacement.
Yet this crisis also reveals a deeper and often ignored reality: the fossil fuel economy continues to shape geopolitical conflict.
For decades, global politics has been entangled with the control of oil and gas resources. Strategic corridors such as the Strait of Hormuz have become flashpoints where military power, economic interests, and fossil fuel dependence converge.
When oil becomes entangled with war, the consequences ripple across the world—especially for vulnerable economies like the Philippines.
For Filipino families, rising oil prices mean immediate hardship: higher transport fares, rising food costs, increasing electricity bills, and deeper economic insecurity. The burden falls heaviest on workers, farmers, fisherfolk, and the urban poor.
This is why the crisis is clearly a matter of structural injustice.
The fossil fuel system does not only warm the planet; it also fuels conflict, deepens economic vulnerability, and perpetuates a model of development built on extraction, inequality, and short-term gain.
As Laudato Si’ reminds us, the climate crisis and the social crisis are inseparable. Likewise, Laudate Deum warns that powerful interests continue to delay the urgent transformation required to protect our common home.
The Philippines remains dangerously dependent on imported coal, oil, and gas. This dependence ties our national stability to conflicts beyond our control and exposes our people to the shocks of volatile global energy markets.
Energy insecurity quickly becomes economic injustice.
The current crisis must therefore be understood as a wake-up call.
The Philippines is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources—solar, wind, geothermal, and marine energy. These are gifts that can free our nation from the dangerous cycle linking fossil fuels, economic vulnerability, and geopolitical conflict.
Renewable energy is a peace strategy, a justice strategy, and a national survival strategy and not simply a solution to the climate crisis.
Every delay in transitioning to clean energy prolongs our exposure to global instability. Every new investment in fossil fuel infrastructure deepens our dependence on a system that contributes both to climate destruction and geopolitical tension.
Proposals to expand domestic oil and gas exploration cannot be treated as a long-term solution to this crisis. Global energy analysis shows that new oil and gas projects now take significantly longer to develop. According to a recent report by Global Energy Monitor, it now takes an oil and gas field three times as long to come online compared with the period from 1960 to 1980, with an average lead time of around fifteen years. These long development timelines expose countries to high financial risks and the possibility of stranded assets as the world accelerates the transition away from fossil fuels.
International energy experts have also warned that continued expansion of fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with global climate goals. The International Energy Agency has stated that no new oil and gas fields should be developed if the world is to keep the 1.5°C climate target within reach. Pursuing new fossil fuel projects would therefore deepen both climate and economic risks. Instead, the Philippines must urgently scale up investments in renewable energy that can be deployed faster, strengthen energy security, and protect communities from the volatility of global fossil fuel markets.
Advancing renewable energy is therefore an urgent moral, economic, and national imperative.
Energy sovereignty rooted in renewable resources can:
▪️ Protect Filipino households from sudden spikes in fuel and electricity prices.
▪️ Strengthen local economies through decentralized and community-based energy systems.
▪️ Reduce dependence on imported fuels vulnerable to geopolitical conflict.
▪️ Contribute to global climate action that safeguards future generations.
A Call to Moral Courage
Caritas Philippines calls on our leaders to pursue peace through diplomacy and to urgently advance a just transition to renewable energy that protects the poor.
We cannot continue investing in a system that fuels both climate destruction and conflict.
Peace is built on justice.
And justice today demands an energy conversion.
(Sgd.)
+ Most Rev. Gerardo A. Alminaza, D.D
Bishop of San Carlos
President, Caritas Philippines