AMORE lights up 13 barangays in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat

KORONADAL CITY – Thirteen remote, conflict-affected villages in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat can now look forward to a brighter future as the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) Program of the US Agency for International Development, Winrock International, the Department of Energy, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Mirant Philippines energizes them with solar energy and empowers them to sustain such energy and use it to power their own development.

AMORE is energizing 185 such barangays in the ARMM and Western and Central Mindanao with clean and sustainable renewable energy to jumpstart socioeconomic development that would hopefully lead to long-term peace. AMORE is installing 50-Wattpeak (Wp) solar home systems in 30 households in each of the 13 barangays, together with a 50-Wp community center lighting and two units of 75-Wp solar streetlights. The systems were funded by Mirant Philippines, the country’s largest energy producer, as part of its Project BEACON, which aims to energize more than 1,000 off-grid barangays throughout the country.

The 13 barangays include 10 in Maguindanao (four in Buluan, two in Gen. Salipada K. Pendatun, three in Datu Paglas and one in Mama sa Pano) and three in Sultan Kudarat (all in Lutayan).

Prior to installing the systems in these barangays, AMORE organized the beneficiaries into Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Development Associations (BRECDAs) and began training them to operate, maintain and productively use the systems to pursue their own development. The BRECDA members are raising their own funds for the continued operation and maintenance of the systems as well as for battery and parts replacement, transporting dead batteries to the recycling depot, and livelihood capital buildup, even as AMORE is giving them hands-on management and other skills trainings prior to its planned pull-out from the barangays in September 2004. 

“We are very happy that finally, we can already avail of the comforts of having electricity in our barangay,” says Edwin Kadelim, chairman of the Paitan Barangay Renewable Energy Community Development Association (PaBRECDA). Barangay Paitan is in the Buluan municipality in Maguindanao. Expected benefits from the energy systems include greater security; extended time for children to study at home, for livelihood activities and for community activities at night; higher income potential from enhanced livelihood activities; and improved access to basic social services.  

According to Enrique Gallardo, AMORE’s Area 3 Manager (Area 3 covers Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and Davao), the BRECDAs in these barangays have been very active in organizing themselves to effectively manage their energy systems. “We are only too happy to assist in the long-awaited development of these barangays that demonstrate dynamism and self-reliance,” he says. In September last year, six barangays have already been energized in Maguindanao—two in Datu Paglas and four in Gen. Salipada K. Pendatun—also with solar PV systems.

AMORE has energized a total of 95 barangays to date and plans to energize 90 more until September 2004, 16 of these still in Maguindanao (also with solar PV systems) and 3 in Sultan Kudarat, two of these using microhydro systems. The other energized and still to be energized barangays are in Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, Sulu, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga City and Davao.