PH Declares Energy Emergency — 'Not a Crisis,' Marcos Insists
2026
PH Declares Energy Emergency — 'Not a Crisis,' Marcos Insists
Artist Statement
President Marcos signs EO 110 declaring a national energy emergency — but insists there's no crisis. Chester the chicken reads between the lines.
On March 24, 2026, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order 110, declaring a state of national energy emergency. The Philippines imports 98% of its oil from the Middle East — and with US-Israel-Iran tensions spiking global fuel prices, that dependency just became a national security issue.
There's just one small detail: Marcos himself has repeatedly refused to call it a 'crisis.' The EO is careful to frame the situation as an emergency — a semantic hairline fracture from a crisis, apparently. Chester here seems to have read the fine print.
Behind Chester, coal plants are working overtime — because when you declare an energy emergency but refuse to build renewable capacity, your backup plan is... more coal. Meanwhile, those solar panels in the foreground? Dusty. But sure, let's call it an emergency and not a crisis.
CHKN take: The cognitive dissonance is almost impressive. Declaring an emergency while insisting nothing is wrong — it's the kind of double-think that only gets easier with practice. EO 110 is a band-aid on a wound that's been getting worse since the Middle East first became unstable. The question isn't whether there's a crisis. It's how long we keep pretending there isn't.
