Light spreads to more households in remote Mindanao village

Carsoma Abunawa is the chairperson of the Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Association of Barangay Tumalutab.

When AMORE electrified the island barangay of Tumalutab in Zamboanga City with solar home systems in April 2004, the 30 members of the Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Development Association (BRECDA) that AMORE organized to operate and maintain the systems vowed that they would do everything they could to help extend the benefits of the electrification project to the rest of their community. The BRECDA members religiously contributed to their Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Fund, which they put up to support their financial requirements for the sustained maintenance and replacement of worn-out spare parts and used-up batteries of their RE systems. In only a short span of time, the BRECDA came up with one of the largest O&M Funds among all the AMORE-organized BRECDAs in Mindanao--enough to purchase smaller, more affordable systems with which to spread the light and hope to more households in their village. The BRECDA came up with its own criteria for the selection of the additional households and with a repayment scheme for the systems over three to four years, which will serve as the revolving fund for the purchase of even more systems for more households. AMORE then facilitated the BRECDA’s access to the Rural Power Project (RPP) of the Philippine Department of Energy, the Department of Land Reform, the World Bank, and the Mirant Philippines Foundation, under which rural households could purchase RE systems that they could afford directly from participating suppliers at subsidized prices. The Tumalutab BRECDA was able to purchase systems for 10 additional households in the village. The systems were installed by the AMORE-trained BRECDA technician, with supervision from the suppliers. The Tumalutab BRECDA is becoming an inspiration not just within the community but also to nearby villages such as Tictabon, also energized by AMORE and whose BRECDA is also looking to adopt what Tumalutab did. Truly, the light is shining brighter in Mindanao.