By Alexander Villafania, loQal.ph
For Yahoo! Southeast Asia

QUEZON CITY, METRO MANILA – Plans are underway to develop a nationwide initiative to develop and deploy electric vehicles in the Philippines.

The Congressional Committee on Science, Technology, and Engineering (COMSTE) is working with the Electric Vehicle Alliance of the Philippines (EVAP) to lay out a program that would help spur the e-vehicle manufacturing, distribution, and deployment in the Philippines.

This initiative would leverage on a $1 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to come up with climate change related projects.

The idea to come up with an e-vehicle industry comes after the ADB announced plans to deploy up to 20,000 electric vehicles, mostly tricycles, to several cities in the Philippines.

The ADB last year approved a $280 million loan to the Philippines to convert gas-powered tricycles into e-vehicles.

COMSTE Chair Senator Edgardo Angara stressed the need to have the manufacturing process be deployed equally among local manufacturers.

Bidding out the project to several manufacturers would speed up the production of the vehicles and spur the manufacturers to produce for other markets as well.

Angara also said the public would also be made aware of the capabilities of local manufacturers in producing e-vehicles and convince them of the benefits of using such mode of transport over conventional ones.

E-vehicles run on mostly electricity stored in batteries. Unlike conventional engines, e-vehicles do not burn fossil fuels and do not belch smoke which is one of the main causes of air pollution.