Night life in New Canaan

“It’s a full house!”— New Canaan residents would exclaim, referring to the ‘home theater’ that the Ba-ids have come up for the community.

The Ba-id family is the only household in New Canaan , Titay, Zamboanga Sibugay that owns a television (TV) set and VCD player. The 21” TV set is like a thing of joy to the residents who first experienced evening lights and “social night life” when the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) Program came into their community in May 2004.

Every night, people flock to the Ba-id residence to watch action movies of Filipino film stars Robin Padilla, Rudy Fernandez, Joko Diaz, and Ronnie Ricketts. “The nightly showing actually gathers not just the Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Development Association (BRECDA) members but also some of the residents in the village,” an AMORE community development worker observed. AMORE organizes its community partners into BRECDAs which manage the operations and maintenance of the RE systems that the program installs in the communities.  

“Evenings have always been dull and quiet in New Canaan ,” said Bonifacio Bulay-og, a BRECDA member.  “But since this one and only TV and VHS player came into our community, it is as if there is always an exciting event that awaited us at the end of a day’s work,” he added.  “Some of our children have not even seen a television, so it was a wonder to some at first how images could appear on the screen.”