FIRST Gen Corporation held its annual stockholders’ meeting at The Fifth at Rockwell in Makati on May 29, 2025.
Chairman Federico R. Lopez (FRL) opened the meeting by revisiting the beginnings of First Gen’s decarbonization journey.
According to FRL, typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) served as a wake-up call. The category five typhoon, which made landfall in Eastern Samar on the morning of November 8, 2013, killed an estimated 8,000 people, injured almost 30,000 and left 4.1 million residents homeless, mostly in the Visayas. It also destroyed Energy Development Corporation’s (EDC) geothermal plants and its communities in Leyte, across San Juanico Strait.
“That single typhoon upended the lives of thousands of people on the island for years and, despite help and efforts to rebuild, many never recovered what they lost. It became crystal clear to us even back then that we had just experienced the fury of being at ground zero of a climate-changed planet.
Typhoon Haiyan was our rude wake-up call that it can no longer be ‘business as usual,’” FRL said.
Fresh mission
In 2020, four years after declaring that it was veering away from coal and pivoting to more sustainable energy sources, the company communicated its fresh mission: “To forge collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future.”
The First Gen chairman once again raised the alarm about the climate crisis, with the world at large continuing to grapple with “global weirding” events that become stronger and more destructive as the years pass, corporates that walk back on net-zero targets, and challenging (and changing) government policies.
In the Philippines, coal continues to have the lion’s share of the country’s electricity generation mix with a 62% share in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency in its 2025 Electricity Report. Renewable energy, on the other hand, accounted for only 22%. This is despite a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants that has been in place since 2020.
“… Even as we speak, interests are at work to expand coal plants which will heighten our electricity grid’s reliance on even more coal and increase the carbon emissions per kilowatthour of our electricity grid. The justification being that coal today is cheaper. If the grid moves in the wrong direction, it will nullify the decarbonizing effects of electrification,” FRL warned.
Solving the climate crisis
The First Gen chairman reiterated that solving the climate crisis starts with three phases: reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) from current global emissions of 50 gigatons per year, with emissions peaking by 2025; eliminating all emissions and reaching net zero by 2050; and attaining net negative emissions by reducing (“or literally sucking out”) the concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere.
“Unfortunately, much of the world’s actions are still primarily just focused on Phase 1 reductions, and emissions peaking by 2025 is certainly not about to happen,” he observed.
The rise of AI is seen to further burden the grid, with its power requirements estimated at 45,000 megawatts (MW) over the next five years— comparable to what a country like France or Germany consumes.
“Given all these headwinds and challenges, many of you may ask whether our group’s mission, vision and strategic directions are still realistic? Our answer to this is a resounding YES, even more so!
“I’ll say it again: this is the greatest transition in the history of mankind. We are thus continuing to shape our platform of businesses to help shepherd our country’s energy use toward staying relevant as well as profitable in this rapidly decarbonizing world,” FRL emphasized.
Aligned with Philippine Energy Plan
Meanwhile, president and chief operating officer Giles Puno highlighted the performance of First Gen’s portfolio over the past year. These include EDC’s major drilling campaign that saw 24 new wells drilled in 2024 and another 19 wells slated for 2025, the integration of Casecnan into hydro operations, the addition of a combined 150 MW of solar through two facilities in Batangas, and the steady growth of energy management systems provider First Gen Energy Solutions.
These initiatives are part of the company’s goal to increase its renewable energy portfolio to 13 gigawatts by 2030 in support of the government’s Philippine Energy Plan.
“At the same time, we aim to grow our customer base thirtyfold, from 500 today to over 15,000, allowing more people access to greater choices of power supply,” Puno shared.
He stated that while natural gas makes up 55% of First Gen’s total capacity, the company’s balance sheet points toward a bias for renewables.
“…In 2024, our total assets consisted of 28% gas investments, and 72% of our investments are already focused on renewable energy. In 2025, we forecast that the percent composition of gas on our total assets will further decline, emphasizing our dedication to building our renewable energy portfolio,” Puno stressed.
‘Urgent optimism’
Following the report on the company’s financial performance, Puno articulated First Gen’s openness to work with government and industry partners on policy reforms, with the goal of boosting investment in clean energy. The First Gen president called for, among others, reevaluating market price caps, improving the competitive selection process or CSP, and the implementation of the Retail Competition and Open Access system as well as the 2020 moratorium on new coal plants.
Thanking First Gen’s directors, officers, shareholders and guests, Puno said: “In 2025, we move forward with urgent optimism—with eyes wide open to the crisis, but with every fibre of our being fully committed to the opportunity to do more. Together, we are not merely powering a future that is cleaner, more secure and more equitable, but building a future where power serves people, planet and progress.”
The meeting also saw the reelection of FRL and Puno to the company’s board of directors, alongside Manolo Michael de Guzman, Richard Tantoco, Manuel L. Lopez Jr., Rina Lopez and Maria Presentation Abello, and independent directors Alicia Rita Morales and Edgar Chua. Elected as new independent director was Manuel Ayala.
