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Solar power lights up Costa Brava, Tacloban for Christmas


“Maraming bagay ang dumadating, lahat ay lilipas din. Ligaya’t kalungkutan, pana-panahon din lang,” a dozen children sang in front of a Christmas tree. “Many things come, all will pass. Joy and sorrow, also comes periodically.”

The lyrics of this Christmas song were made especially poignant by the fact that these children live in the fishing community of Costa Brava in Barangay 88, one of the areas in Tacloban City most affected by Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. They and their families have had to live without access to electricity ever since, until Christmas came early for them recently in the form of solar energy.

Aid groups distribute and instruct residents on how to use their solar home systems in Costa Brava, Tacloban. All photos: AC Dimatatac
 

A couple of hours before, about 30 of Costa Brava's residents excitedly gathered in their homeowners’ association meeting hall to receive 30 solar home systems, each of which had three lamps and a small fan.

Through their association’s partnership with the climate policy group Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), housing rights organization Urban Poor Associates, and UK charity Christian Aid, they signed an agreement to pay P85 every week for the solar home systems—which cost P8,700 each—over the next two years.

Residents can pay P85 a week for two years for the systems.
 

I first dropped by one of the farthest houses from their meeting hall and found 19-year-old Elma Ocenar, her one-year-old daughter Mecaella, and another young mother fiddling with the two boxes from Niwa Solar. Elma’s fisherman husband was away, so I and the other staff from ICSC helped to set up the solar panel and charging system, as well as hang the LED lamps around the house.

Elma was shy and had a small voice, but eventually opened about how she and her husband had to adjust to living without electricity since arriving in Costa Brava early last year with her then-five-month-old baby. Sleep has been elusive for both of them, she confided.

“My baby wants me to fan her throughout her sleep, as she was used to sleeping with an electric fan. And she would get so afraid of the dark that she’d cry,” she said in Filipino.

Elma Ocenar and her daughter Mecaella, Costa Brava, Tacloban.
 

Elma added that she and Mecaella, along with two other mothers from the same province, would sleep in the beachside cottages on weekday afternoons with their young children to catch the cool afternoon breeze. While the solar home system was not big enough to power the lights and the fan all through the night, she said it was still a much welcome addition to her old rundown solar lamp, gas lamp, and hand fan.

The last house I visited, almost right across the solar-lighted Christmas tree, was that of fisherman Edwin Lego, 40, and his wife Victoria, 50. Little did I know that they were the parents of Randy Mark Zoga, the jolly and active 25-year-old who helped hand out the solar home systems to his neighbors.

I first met him late last July when he and two other residents from Costa Brava joined the abovementioned organizations’ Solar Scholars training. It was specifically designed for Yolanda survivors like them to be able to use ICSC’s TekPaks, or solar suitcases, to power houses or emergency response centers as well as charge phones, radios, and other low-power equipment.

Edwin and Victoria Lego with their son Randy Mark Zoga (center), Costa Brava, Tacloban.
 

Edwin and Victoria proudly showed me Randy’s certificates, lovingly framed and hung on the walls of their transition house’s living room. Since participating in the Solar Scholars training, their son has also attended one on evacuation management and another on community-based disaster risk reduction management. He has also represented his community at forums of Yolanda survivors.

Edwin was adamant about staying in Costa Brava, sharing the challenges that his former neighbors continue to face in the relocation site north of Tacloban.

And while he was also vocal about continuing to demand for his community be connected back to the grid, he still fell in line to receive one of the solar home systems.

Before Yolanda, around 700 families lived in Costa Brava. Now, the number is closer to 200.
 

“We still worked to get one of these [solar home systems] because once we have completely paid for them, it’s completely ours, and nobody else’s. We’ll just have to pay for it bit by bit—the terms aren’t that heavy anyway,” Edwin stated.

The organizing and housing efforts of Christian Aid and Urban Poor Associates in Costa Brava and a few other communities in Tacloban has been going on since they were devastated by the typhoon, explained Arturo “Uro” Tahup, ICSC project coordinator.

“Before Yolanda, there were 700 families living there, more or less. After Yolanda, it became 200. In fact, they actually had to fight to go back because the area was designated as a no-build zone,” he said.

For vulnerable communities like Costa Brava, it is important to help them not just to get back on their feet but to unleash their full potential for development.
 

Uro said that ICSC came into the picture last year, when it installed a solar-powered water pump in Costa Brava last July and involved Randy and his neighbors in the Solar Scholars training later that month. He added that the solar-powered development of Costa Brava does not stop with the home systems.

“Part of the [payment] will be used to run solar street lights, assemble new solar TekPaks, and launch new Solar Scholars trainings,” he shared.

For vulnerable communities like Costa Brava, it is important to be able to imagine a better way not just to get back on their feet but to unleash their full potential for development.

Through the power of the sun, they are beginning to realize this vision. In the meantime, they are settling down to celebrate Christmas, one that’s much brighter than they can remember in the past three years.

Solar power brings Christmas cheer to the residents of Costa Brava, Tacloban.
 

— BM, GMA News

Denise M. Fontanilla is the energy policy advocacy consultant of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, a policy group promoting low-carbon development initiatives in vulnerable countries.

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