Philippines declares ‘national energy emergency’ and boosts coal power as Iran war grinds on

<p>President’s declaration allows officials to tackle fuel hoarding or profiteering, while energy secretary says country will lean more heavily on coal</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/mar/24/iran-war-live-updates-trump-ursula-von-der-leyen-oil-prices-energy-crisis-israel-strikes?filterKeyEvents=false&amp;page=with%3Ablock-69c300a88f089e6ac8d2ff02#top-of-blog">Middle East crisis – live updates </a> </p></li></ul><p>The Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos, has declared a state of “national energy emergency” as a result of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/us-israel-war-on-iran">Middle East war</a>, which his administration said posed “an imminent danger of a critically low energy supply”.</p><p>The state of emergency, which will initially last for a year, was declared just hours after the country’s energy secretary said <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/philippines">the Philippines</a> planned to boost the output of its coal-fired power plants to keep electricity costs down as the war wreaks havoc with gas shipments.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/25/philippines-declares-national-energy-emergency-iran-war">Continue reading...</a>