What Links Lenin to the Aetas?

Yesterday at 6 am, a NEA car picked me up at home for a long drive to Pampanga. We were to visit the linemen and engineers who were putting up the poles and stringing the lines to bring electricity to Barangay Nawacat, a community of over 900 Aetas in the hills of Floridablanca.

A few weeks ago, Aetas in two barangays of Floridablanca, Nawacat and Nagbuklod, were given a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) to around 8000 hectares. At the awarding ceremony, they asked GMA for electricity to be brought to their communities. Since the areas are under the franchise of a private distribution utility, the San Fernando Electric Light and Power Company (SFELAPCO), it was tasked to do the job.

SFELAPCO has taken charge of electrifying Barangay Nabuklod, which has over 3000 residents. But Barangay Nawacat has fewer and poorer residents, is quite far from the town center, without a bridge across the river, and the road to it is barely passable. NEA has assumed the responsibility for it.

Using previous successful working methods, NEA assembled a Task Force Kapatid, which brought together 64 linemen and 10 engineers from  eight electric cooperatives (ECs) in Central Luzon, coordinated by 5 NEA engineers.

Two electric coops, PENELCO in Bataan and PELCO 2 in Pampanga, were asked to choose the route for the poles and decide on what “tapping point” to use for the electricity to Nawacat . Both have energized some barangays in Floridablanca which were waived to them by SFELAPCO. After comparing their findings, they agreed that the “tapping point” for the electricity to Nawacat should be from the line of PELCO 2.

When I heard that NEA Administrator Edith Bueno and her two deputies Ed Piamonte and Bert Basig were going to visit Task Force Kapatid – Namawac, I asked to join them: “I want to see up close how electricity is brought to a remote rural barangay.”

Our first stop was at the edge of a river that we could not cross. Across it I saw three poles with yellow-shirted linemen on the crossbars. I have learned some of the jargon, so I knew that they were “dressing” the poles, attaching insulators with grooves for the hot wires.

We traveled to a more shallow crossing, and drove slowly to Barangay Namawac. Almost  all of the 170-plus poles were in place, some of them wood, others steel. The distance from the “tapping point” to the barangay is more than seven kilometers, and the materials used to bring electricity there will cost more than five million pesos.

“You can see why we need non-stock non-profit electric coops and NEA with commitment to missionary electrification,” Edith remarked. “No profit oriented coop or corporation will invest that much, since they have to wait for decades to earn it back.”

The work of digging the holes and putting up the poles has been made easier by the boom trucks brought by the participating ECs. We stopped to talk to the different work teams to express our appreciation for their solidarity. 

Task Force Kapatid was the brain child of Fr. Silva and it was first used to bring hundreds of linemen and engineers from other ECs to restore the lines in the towns around Lake Lanao. They had been destroyed during the fighting in the 90s. It has been used after every major typhoon in Bicol, Aklan, Mindoro, Pangasinan, Masbate, and elsewhere to restore electric service faster than the capacity of individual coops. One of the PENELCO linemen proudly said that he has taken part in nine Task Force Kapatid missions.

When we reached Nawacat, I got to talk to an Aeta resident, Angelo Saplala, a barangay kagawad. I asked him, “Other than having lights, what benefit do you expect from having electricity?”

He seemed to have thought about this, since he quickly enumerated a few. “It will save us a lot of money,” he said. “I spend 400 pesos a month for kerosene.” He will probably be a lifeliner using less than 50 KWH and paying around 50 pesos a month.

“When we have electricity, we will be able to work at night, preparing what we will sell in the town market,” he added. “We can travel earlier in the morning.” He also thought of buying a refrigerator, not just to preserve food but to make ice which he will sell to his neighbors.

It was a glimpse of what advocates of rural electrification believe, that it is not just about bringing electricity into rural villages, but also about stimulating community development.

Electricity may be necessary for development, but it is not enough. They need an all-weather farm to market road, and a bridge across the river. “When the river is swollen after heavy rains,” Angelo said, “all we have to eat are bananas.”

There is a primary school built 8 years ago. Before that, children had to stay in Floridablance town during the school week, and walk home for the weekends.

The general manager of PELCO 2 is Amador Guevarra, better known as “Ka Basil.” He whispered to me that the area we were in used to be under his command when he was with the New People’s Army. It is part of the tri-boundary of Bataan, Pampanga, and Zambales. I was reminded of Fr. Silva’s quip that he also went to the mountains, but not as a guerilla. “Instead of carrying an Armalite, I brought light. I am a warrior of light, against the forces of darkness.”

Is this what links Lenin to the Aetas? Not quite.

Activists who are now involved in rural electrification often ask ourselves why we didn’t see the importance of electric power during the years of our involvement in the revolutionary movement. I expressed this once to General Dumol, the first NEA Administrator who laid the foundations of rural electrification from 1969 to 1985: “Could it be because we identified it with the Marcos martial law regime which we were fighting against?”

He had another answer, which he proposed with a mischievous smile: “You must have forgotten Lenin’s slogan during the Russian revolution – Land and Electricity!”