None other than President Marcos Jr led the groundbreaking in 2024 and the inauguration this year of the Meralco Terra (MTerra) Solar Project, the first phase of the 3,500-hectare project located in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija. The inauguration was timed for the birthday of Meralco Power Gen (MGEN) head, Manuel V. Pangilinan (MVP).
MGEN touts MTerra as the world’s largest contiguous solar and battery storage facility, promising to power thousands of households while helping transition the country to clean and affordable energy. But behind this promise lies MTerra’s darker side: it advances the private development and control of a strategic sector that should be in the hands of the State, while casting a troubling shadow over vast agricultural lands, farming communities, and their livelihoods.
Prioritizing private energy
Latest official data show 505 awarded solar projects with a potential capacity of 31,584 megawatts (MW). Of these, 133 projects are already in commercial operation, with total installed capacity reaching 3,257 MW.
The Php200-billion MTerra, under development, has a potential capacity of over 2,500 MW, representing 8.5% of the total potential capacity of awarded solar projects under development. MTerra has the highest potential and is projected to supply electricity to an estimated 2.4 million households.
The project is being developed in phases—beginning with the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, then battery energy storage systems (BESS) to store excess solar energy for later use, and then transmission to the national grid. The second phase of MTerra is targeted for completion in 2027.
The Marcos administration has prioritized the project in its renewable energy (RE) program, aggressively facilitating rollout through expedited permits and regulatory approvals, as well as policy changes that have enabled the project to advance rapidly from one phase to the next.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has streamlined the approval process through various mechanisms, such as the Energy Virtual One Stop Shop system. Approval of RE service contract usually takes several months. For example, of the solar projects awarded in 2019, 92% remained unbuilt by year-end and stuck in the pre-development stage, indicating a severe gap between awarding and implementation. Solar Philippines and its subsidiaries had repeatedly appeared in the 2019 list, indicating that its founder, Batangas 1st District Representative Leandro Leviste, son of Senator Loren Legarda, was already positioned for large-scale consolidation well before MTerra.
Six years after the 2019 figures were released, the build-out rate barely budged from 8% to roughly 8.6% even as awarded capacity has nearly tripled.
The approval of MTerra, in contrast, has been expedited, as it took only three years for the groundbreaking to take place. Against the backdrop of chronic under-delivery, the Marcos government has positioned MTerra as the flagship of its RE agenda.
Powering oligarch profits
Meralco Group, through its subsidiary MGEN, and its own renewable energy arm, SP New Energy Corporation (SPNEC), lead MTerra. The UK-based investment firm Actis also acquired a 40% stake in the project through a US$600 million investment, before Actis itself was acquired by the US-based General Atlantic. Rep. Leandro Leviste’s Solar Philippines held a 16.3% stake in MTerra Solar before the congressman stepped down from the MTerra Solar board of directors in January 2026.
Meanwhile, Energy China will serve as the engineering, procurement, construction, and logistics contractor to oversee permit operations, manufacturing, testing, and other on-site procedures.
The project’s ownership and operational structure highlight how the country’s RE transition only concentrates wealth among established oligarchs and big businesses. RE is only one among MVP’s businesses across multiple industries. He controls Meralco, and with an estimated net worth of over US$1 billion, he also chairs a business empire spanning telecommunications (PLDT), water distribution (Maynilad), toll roads and highways (Metro Pacific Tollways), and even hospitals (Metro Pacific Health).
While exact profit projections are undisclosed, MTerra’s sheer scale and guaranteed off-take arrangements position the Meralco Group to generate massive long-term returns.
Communities bearing costs
The intersection of corporate interests and renewable energy that should be in the hands of the State reveals a difficult pattern: government facilitation primarily serves to de-risk and accelerate private profit-making, providing businesses with substantial support and protection. But at this intersection are communities and the broader population, bearing social and environmental costs.
MTerra sprawls across several municipalities in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, which are part of the country’s rice granary in Central Luzon. Generations have cultivated rice, vegetables, and fruit-bearing trees, working the land under customary tenure arrangements and now vulnerable to displacement.
Land clearing began as early as January 2024, nine months before the project’s official launch, and intensified by mid-2026—all without consultation with, or the consent of, the affected communities.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) estimates about 22,000 affected residents in Barangays (Bgy.) Callos, Pias, Macabaklay, Puting Tubig, and Capangalan in Nueva Ecija alone. The project is reportedly taking over around 1,000 hectares of productive agricultural land in Sitios Minalungao, Sangilo, Cunakon, and Bayukbuk, located across Bgy. Pias in General Tinio and Bgy. Macabaklay in Gapan, Nueva Ecija, affecting some 300 farming families.
Jane Bote, a farmer from Nueva Ecija, witnessed armed personnel destroy their crops, including coconut, calamansi, banana, mango, and vegetable plants. Around 800 Gmelina trees were also burned. Rice lands have also been bulldozed.
In particular, KMP reported on 22 April 2026 that MTerra personnel used heavy equipment to destroy crops covering 30 hectares of agricultural land without the farmers’ permission.
Farmers have lost not only their crops but, in many cases, their very means of farming. Many can no longer afford to send their children to school or provide adequately for their families. Access to basic services and utilities has also been disrupted.
Environmental costs further compound the social damage, including the loss of tree cover, worsening soil erosion, and the conversion of biodiverse farmland into solar infrastructure. A case in point is the Olongapo Solar Power Project in Zambales, where the installation of silicon-based infrastructure led to the stripping of thousands of hectares of trees and crops as well as degraded the ecosystem.
The project has been marred by political repression. The Bayanihang Magsasaka ng Sangilo Association Inc. (BMSAI) and Sitio Sangilo United Farmers Association Inc. (SSUFAI) have reported intimidation, harassment, and fabricated charges being filed against community members. State agents are going around the communities, particularly in Sitio Sangilo, Bgy. Macabaklay, Nueva Ecija, threatening the farmers and claiming ownership over their lands. They are accompanied by the Gapan City police chief and the barangay captain, four civilian vehicles, two marked police patrol vehicles, and armed men in civilian clothing. Philippine National Police (PNP) personnel were also deployed in Sitio Sangilo, intimidating residents opposing the project.
Farmers push back
The communities set up barricades, but they were met with harassment, demolition, theft accusations, and legal retaliation, including evacuation notices, subpoenas for ejectment and forcible entry, illegal detention, and trumped-up criminal charges.
Undaunted, the affected farmers have come together, along with fellow peasants and workers from other provinces in Central Luzon, under the banner of the Save Our Rice Granary Campaign, a collective effort to forward the farmers’ concerns in Central Luzon, including the fight against land grabbing and displacement.
“Hindi naman sa ayaw sa development at saka renewable energy, pero dapat kinikilala kaming mga magsasaka sa proyekto,” one farmer says. The struggle of farmers in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija goes beyond the defense of their own homes and livelihoods. It is part of a broader resistance to the aggressive and often violent conversion of agricultural lands sweeping across the country.
For all its promises of clean energy transition, the MTerra Solar Project exposes where the government’s priorities lie: not with the farmers who feed the nation, but with politically connected corporations, oligarchic interests, and their foreign partners. The Marcos administration, MGEN, and their corporate affiliates must be held accountable for the displacement, repression, and environmental damage tied to the project.
But MTerra is not an isolated case. It reflects a renewable energy regime built to facilitate large-scale corporate control over land, energy, and infrastructure while communities bear the costs. The country’s renewable energy policies therefore require more than adjustment; they demand a fundamental overhaul toward public control, community protection, and genuine social benefit. Development cannot be called progress when it dispossesses those who cultivate the land, destroys livelihoods, and concentrates the gains in the hands of a few.
