Artemis II’s historic flyby on the far side of the moon occurred within the Octave of Easter, during these times of war in the Middle East that has led to the destruction of lives and infrastructure, as well as severe and likely prolonged economic uncertainty around the world.
One can easily dismiss the occurrence of these events in parallel as mere coincidence. Considering, however, that we are still celebrating Easter, let us — for a moment — hold off on simply dismissing things to be as nothing more than how they appear on the surface and reflect on what one event may teach us about the other.
GLOVER’S REFLECTIONS — SPACESHIP EARTH
On April 1, Wednesday of Holy Week, more than 50 years since humanity’s first landing on the moon, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched Artemis II from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Artemis II is described in NASA’s website as its “first crewed flight test… around the Moon to verify today’s capabilities for humans to explore deep space and pave the way for long-term exploration and science on the lunar surface.”
On Easter Sunday, Artemis II’s pilot Victor Glover was asked in an interview (from Earth to somewhere in outer space) if he had any message to share about Easter Sunday. Glover said he did not prepare anything, but what he said struck a chord with so many that the video clip has since gone viral. It is not surprising that Glover’s words, particularly those from the excerpt below, resonated with a lot of people today:
“…[W]e are so far from Earth and looking back at the beauty of creation, I think for me, one of the really important personal perspectives that I have up here is I can really see Earth as one thing… [Y]ou have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth. But you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us place to live in the universe, in the cosmos…”
Glover is one of four astronauts in the Orion spacecraft for Artemis II. In the many video and audio clips of the crew so far sent since their 10-day mission started, we do not see any bickering, any fighting for better space or position in their cramped vehicle, or even any attempt to upstage each other for the limited face time with family, friends, or the public. They are so conscious of the fact that they are all literally in the same vessel floating in the vast nothingness.
In the meantime, how are we doing, the rest of us on Spaceship Earth?
On April 5, Easter Sunday, heavy fighting reportedly continued between Iran and the US and Israel that damaged oil storage and processing facilities in various locations and killed and injured men and women, including civilians in Iran and other countries in the Middle East. In the Philippines, everyone was bracing for another round of significant increases in pump prices that would bring diesel prices to around P160/liter and gasoline to P100/liter, after five consecutive weeks of price hikes. Governments in other parts of the world are likewise scrambling to secure every available volume of petroleum to be found to build their buffer and prepare for more and prolonged supply disruptions.
While we can give all credit to chance that these major events are occurring at same slice of (Earth) time, I think we can do better and extract all lessons and insights that we can from the present events to help us navigate better our journey on Spaceship Earth.
By the time this article sees print, Artemis II will already be back on Earth, having landed safely to conclude their mission with success. Everyone involved in the mission — the astronauts in spaceship, the crew in the International Space Station and on the ground in Florida — have already given those of us on Earth, if we permit ourselves to actually see, a huge and timely gift during these distressing times: HOPE and the ability to see what can be done when people WORK TOGETHER.
These days, the term “energy sovereignty” is being brandished everywhere and is taken to mean that each country is required to secure its own energy resources alone, regardless of impact on others. Yet, if there is only one thing that Artemis II teaches us, it is that in order to accomplish missions whose success lie beyond what our eyes can see or a future far greater than our human minds can project, we need to always bear in mind that we are all on one Spaceship Earth. That there is the need to work with the “other,” those whose ways of living may be different from ours but with whom we share common goals of dignity, prosperity and sustainability.
ENERGY TURNING POINT — A CONVERSION STORY
It is now also a largely accepted view that even after the war is over and the Strait of Hormuz is re-opened for navigation, there will be no return to “normal.” Much like our collective experience from COVID-19, even if the pandemic was declared over and the lockdowns lifted, there was no going back to the way things were: we have a cohort of children who continue to chase the learning gap resulting from almost two years of remote learning, variations and applicability of work-from-home arrangements continue to confuse and sometimes foster resentment among co-workers, and new and more severe strains of pneumonia and other diseases raise questions about long-term effects of COVID-19 or its vaccines.
For each of these critical events — the COVID pandemic, the onset of the Ukraine war in 2022, the ongoing Iran war — that upends our way of life, we find that, once the crisis is over, our way of life is changed fundamentally and we never get back to what or where or how we were prior to the event.
One thing that this ongoing war in the Middle East has undeniably exposed is our heavy dependence on imported fuel for transportation, in particular. Our energy insecurity is something we can no longer ignore. Regardless of how much longer the crisis lasts, what is clear is that we need a concrete, definitive, and milestone-based roadmap to liberate our transport and power sectors from import-dependent bondage. This energy security roadmap will need to be drawn up without any further delay and will need to be at the core of our national development agenda. It cannot be a plan that is limited to the energy sector or the transport sector alone; it needs to cover all sectors of the economy and society.
BEYOND ENERGY — JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE
The war in Iran has brought about an energy crisis, that is true — but it is NOT JUST about energy. The economist E.F. Schumacher was said to have remarked in the 1970s about energy systems in modern society: “[These are] not just another commodity, but the precondition of all other commodities, a basic factor equal to air, water, and earth.”
It is hard to dispute what Schumacher said, particularly as we experience the effects of what is happening in the Middle East all the way to the remote islands in the Philippines. If we have an air or a water crisis, do we not also have a health crisis? And a food crisis? In the same vein, an energy crisis or emergency may mislead us into thinking that what we have is confined only to the energy industry.
If energy is as basic as air, water, and earth, we cannot make energy plans independent of, or even simply in parallel with, national development plans. Our energy security plan will need to cover and obtain the contribution of all sectors, including the consumer sector. It will need to be the bedrock upon which our country’s development strategy stands.
That the Philippines chairs the ASEAN Summit this year should not be lost on us either. It places the country at a strategic position at this pivotal time in history to mobilize our neighbors in the region to contribute to the shared benefits of regional cooperation. The President of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, Tetsuya Watanabe, said in an interview recently: “The current shock is a reminder that going alone is more expensive and less effective than going together. Immediate crisis response needs to be taken by individual countries… but moving forward, this disruption can be a catalyst for deeper regional integration. An over-reliance on purely national approach may reduce opportunity for regional optimization of resources.”
Monalisa C. Dimalanta is a senior partner at Puyat Jacinto & Santos Law (PJS Law). She was the chairperson and CEO of the Energy Regulatory Commission from 2022 to 2025, and chairperson of the National Renewable Energy Board from 2019 to 2021.
