Warrior of Light

Girlie and I have just come back from Toledo City in Cebu. We both spoke at the annual conference of 144 electric coop engineers, held at the People’s Development Academy which is located in the compound of CEBECO 3.

I have been going to various training workshops at the PDA, but this was special. It’s the first time that Girlie has joined me. And even more special, we were able to attend the April 2 birthday celebration of Fr. Francisco “Paking” Silva.

This week has been framed by encounters with two unconventional priests – Fr. Ed Panlilio, “Among Ed,” elected as governor of Pampanga “miraculously” against overwhelming odds, and Fr. Paking Silva. Among Ed has been suspended from his priestly ministry by his bishop, when he decided to heed the call to provide an alternative political leadership for the Kapampangans. Fr. Paking is also on leave from his priestly ministry, but by mutual agreement with the late Cardinal Rosales, when he decided to work full-time in rural electrification.

Both make me think back to the original impulse that made me decide to be a priest – to serve a community, especially the poor. Both have served in more conventional ministries: Among Ed was parish priest of Betis before he ran for governor, and before that, the director of the social action apostolate. Fr, Paking served as parish priest in Moalboal and Toledo, and director of a diocesan high school.

Their current fields and form of service are no less priestly, even if unusual for ordained clergy.

His close friends call him “Fr. Paking,” but the people at the National Electrification Administration address him as “Secretary Silva,” because he is now a cabinet-rank Presidential Adviser on Rural Electrification. The acronym is appropriate – PARE.

Sometime in the last months of 2001, I got a call from Fr. Paking. He asked me to drop by NEA, because he wanted me to help out with the 119 electric cooperatives under the supervision of NEA. I met him in December, and since then, I have worked with him in the rural electrification movement.

Until I met him, I knew next to nothing about electric cooperatives and rural electrification. Like any Metro Manila resident, I had the impression that electricity is distributed mainly by private companies like Meralco. If I thought of electric coops at all, I presumed that they were small marginal players, serving small marginal communities.

It was a shock to discover the true picture – 119 ECs are responsible for delivering electricity to 7.5 million customers, most of them residential. Compared to the service areas of the ECs, private distribution utilities like Meralco in Metro Manila, Veco in Cebu City, Cepalco in Cagayan de Oro City and Davao Light in Davao City serve relatively small “islands,” though their industrial, commercial and residential customers consume more power.

When I realized how important is rural electrification, I wondered why activists didn’t take up the issue, and I can’t thank Fr. Paking enough for inviting me to join him in the mission of rural electrification.

The day before we were to fly to Cebu, Girlie said that we should give him a birthday gift: “Let’s give him one of your paintings. Paint something,” she urged me. I wasn’t sure I would have enough time and energy. I had to chair a whole day meeting of the Excom of the National EFA Committee, and also prepare for facilitating the plenary session of the “People’s Food Summit.”

Happily, I managed to finish a small canvas by midnight, and add the finishing touches after breakfast.

It helped that I had been mulling over the theme for some time, part of my preparation for a painting exhibition set for August 1 to 22. It is based on a prose-poem by a fellow political prisoner, probably Levy dela Cruz:: Sa madilim na gabi ng ating panahon / Di lahat ay natutulog/ Marami ang naglalamay/ Sa tanglaw ng karit-buwang / Pumupunit sa karimlan.

When I first read the verses, I recognized its allusion to the passage in Rizal’s novel that “not everyone was asleep in the night of our forefathers.”

I did a couple of paintings on the theme while in prison; the last on the wooden door of our detention room in Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan. The prison painting was a play on jagged lines and colors of the night sky – blues, purples, and some black – as the backdrop for a crescent moon, and the lines of the prose-poem. At the bottom of the canvas, black against the horizon, a cluster of huts huddled in the dark, their tiny oil lamps flickering through their windows. In the foreground, barely discernible in the tall grass, were the silhouettes of a guerrilla unit.

For our gift to Fr. Paking, I did the same night sky and crescent moon, and used the same text of the prose-poem. But instead of the guerrilla unit, I painted the silhouettes of linemen and engineers putting up a pole that will extend the lines to energize the sitio.

Fewer than 2000 barangays remain to be energized by the ECs and NEA, but tens of thousands of sitios await.

When Fr. Paking would introduce me and other former activists like Eric Bucoy to the participants at the PDA, his standard spiel is “These people went up to the hills carrying their Armalites. But although I sympathized with their cause, I decided to go up to the hills to bring light.”

He follows this up with a challenge to the EC leaders and members to think of themselves as “warriors of light,” part of a mission that is no less revolutionary and demanding equivalent commitment.

In my short greetings to Fr. Paking and to the participants, I gave thanks that I have been given the chance to join the mission of rural electrification, even at its last stages. I hope to contribute my share to this cause, especially as it faces new threats and challenges – the changed policy environment promoted under EPIRA, the need for renewable energy in meeting projected power demand, and the need for a more informed and active consumer movement.

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