
<div class="image-500">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/geronimo-velasco-memory-sm.webp" alt="Geronimo Zamora Velasco and wife" />
<div>
(Geronimo "Ronnie" Zamora Velasco and wife Erlinda)
</div>
</div>
<p>
Velasco was born in 1927.  He was the only son of the late Urbano Velasco, veteran reporter of the daily newspaper in Spanish, La Vanguardia.  Velasco got his primary education at La Salle in 1934, and graduated from high school in 1946 in the same school.  After high school he took up mechanical engineering at the Mapua Institute of Technology. 
</p>
<p>
He worked with the Republic Glass Corporation in 1961 and later founded the Hawaiian subsidiary of Dole (pineapple) in the country. He managed Stanvac, a branch of Standard Vacuum Oil Company of America. This company was bought out by the Philippine government and converted to Petrophil. He became the CEO of the Philippine National Oil Company.
</p>
<p>
When the Ministry of Energy was created in 1979,  Velasco, was appointed by President Marcos, as it first Minister. He remedied the country's dependence on Middle East oil and lessened the huge expenditure of our dollars by establishing geothermal power, and the use of other alternative sources of energy including the development of nuclear energy.  In 1973, the country is 92 percent dependent on imported oil. This was reduced to 57 percent in 1984 and further to a 44 percent in 1985 under the genius of Velasco.
</p>
<p>
Velasco was unceremoniously dumped from his position as Philippines "Energy Czar" in 1986, when George Shultz and Paul Wolfowitz orchestrated a "regime change" military coup against the Marcos government. The immediate consequence of that imperial act was the mothballing of the completed nuclear power plant, thus destroying in one shot the potential for the Philippines to emerge as a modern industrial nation, as envisioned by the President Marcos plan for 11 major industrial projects. 
</p>
<p>
Corazon Aquino through the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) charged Velasco with having allegedly committed corruption, only to be declared later innocent by the Supreme Court.
</p>


Remembering Geronimo Velasco, President Marcos' "Energy Czar" and architech of Philippine nuclear energy