Did you know that the first cars were built to run on ethanol? The very first car produced by the Ford Motor Company in the 1882, the Quadricycle, ran on ethanol. The Model T of Ford, the first mass-produced car, built in 1908, was designed with a carburetor that could run on ethanol fuel produced by America’s farmers. In fact, the first mass-produced care in America was advertised as fulfilling Ford’s vision to "build a vehicle affordable to the working family and powered by a fuel that would boost the rural farm economy."

The shift to oil-based petroleum came with the discovery of massive deposits of oil in Canada, the United States and eventually in the rest of the world, especially the Middle East. The current high price of oil makes the world think again of alternatives to oil-based petroleum. Thus, the Philippines has to look to alternatives, which, in this case, is bioethanol.

As usual, any new program will bring on believers and doubters.

In the case of bioethanol, Senator Juan Miguel (Migz) Zubiri is the main advocate and he is taking on all comers. Says Zubiri: "With all due respect to Nobel Laureate Dr. Hartmut Michel, I would like to explain that the situation in the Philippines is much more different than that in the United States and Europe. In the US, the feedstock for bioethanol production is corn and in Europe, the feedstock for biodiesel production is soybeans and sunflower."

The bioethanol feedstock both in the US and in Europe comes from its food inventory, thus the concern that this will be taking away needed food from the human population is proper.

Zubiri explains that the Philippine program for bioethanol is patterned after the successful one of Brazil, which uses sugarcane as its primary feedstock and the Indian program, which is built on the jatropha plant.

Under the Philippines’ Biofuels Act, explains Zubiri, "the Department of Agriculture is mandated to make sure steps are taken so that biofuel production won’t eat into our food supply and will not affect our food security."

The concern is also that land, which could be used to produce food, may be diverted into bioethanol production. (But hasn’t much of the land that was being used for rice production already been converted into subdivisions? Why belabor a solution to the country’s dependence on foreign oil by assigning it as the main culprit for lower food production when most of us city dwellers are living in subdivisions that used to be rice farms?)

Migz points out that agricultural land used for food production will not be reduced: "We will tap one million hectares of idle government land to plant jatropha. There are tracts of land in the countryside with nothing planted on them except cogon grass. We will also utilize local jatropha production to lessen our dependence on imported diesel products.

"This will not only be about biodiesel production but also about livelihood, employment and reforestation programs all rolled into one. This is the key to the development of our countryside."

Jatropha and coconut oil will be the main ingredients in our diesel mix.

For gasoline, the main ingredient will be bioethanol, which will come from sugarcane.

It is in the issue of sugar as bioethanol feedstock where the criticism against Zubiri turns personal and irrational. It is pointed out that as a legislator, Zubiri ought to keep away from laws hat affect sugar production because his family was in the sugar business as millers and planters.

Migz points out that "we don’t need to tap other lands but will use only areas already planted to sugar. Sugar is not a basic food source, it is an additive, and so won’t compete directly with the population’s food requirement. We should also consider that the sugar industry is now experiencing a slump because of the low price worldwide. Sugar from Thailand is now 20 percent cheaper than our sugar and with this price it would kill the industry and render five million people jobless in the provinces of Negros, Iloilo, Bukidnon, Tarlac, Pampanga and Batangas."

Zubiri explains: "The bioethanol program is turning sugar into a high value crop. We expect incomes and salaries to increase with this higher value. What we want to achieve is a higher standard of living for our people in the countryside and produce biofuels without being subjected to OPEC’s $100 per barrel price."

The Sugar Alliance of the Philippines (SAP) points out that the bioethanol program "will give the farmers another product not in lieu of sugar but in addition to sugar thus encouraging them to work their farms to their full production potential."

Besides, according to the SAP, a study of sugar as bioethanol feedstock in 2004 in Sao Paulo Brazil came up with figure of 1:8 for the energy conversion efficiency of sugar as feedstock for ethanol. This means that for one unit of energy input, eight unites of energy is generated. This is superior to that of corn that has a ratio of only 1:1.1.

As politician, it is only right that Migz Zubiri look into what can improve both the lives of our people and the country’s economy. Bioethanol can do both, besides creating savings for the country by substituting what we can produce for what we are currently importing as very expensive barrels of oil.

Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri is looking out for the stakeholders in the sugar industry, which is also primarily the sector where he had been garnering his main political support. Nothing wrong with that since what Migz is pushing for is also what this country needs to do to survive.

It is noteworthy that a senator is looking into things that are more positive and useful than what are usually the subjects of Senate investigations!