Tuesday, February 26, 2008 And light comes to Balangabang By Laarni Sibayan
BALANGABANG, Tuel, Tublay, Benguet: What most kids their age living an hour away take for granted daily, Balangabang's Elementary school's 48 students, their families and teachers have been without for decades until last Wednesday.
While Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes and National Electrification Administrator (NEA) Editha Bueno were handing out the P21,968,907.55 check to Benguet Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Beneco) general manager Gerardo Verzosa and board president Benny Bomogao in Baguio City, students of this small sitio witnessed the energization of their school.
Although done in a simpler program compared to the awarding of check in Baguio, the Balangabang energization emphasized the difficult terrain facing Beneco in their mission to energize rural areas.
"Though the sitio is only a few kilometers from our main office in Alapang, the road just recently opened, and the funding used was initially from our internally generated fund (IGF) was made possible with the initial releases from our P100 million approved loan from NEA," said Beneco board member George Montes.
His area of responsibility covers the town of Tublay where Balangabang belongs. It was though Montes's initiative, which triggered the inclusion of Balangabang in Beneco's energization project expansion.
"The Balangabang Elementary School was the priority and first to be given electricity, while the homeowners complete the connection requirements," explained Engineering Department manager Melchor Licoben.
"Even teachers do not want to be assigned here due to lack of electricity. Maybe because it makes it doubly difficult for them to prepare their daily lesson plans at night and they have to do it during the day on top of their teaching duties during the day," said Flora Sim, president of the Parents-Teachers Community Association (PTCA) of the school.
Despite studying every night using gas or candles, Sim's 10-year-old daughter Maybelle was the salutatorian of her grade 4 class last year.
"The kids here are way behind their counterparts in Baguio and other areas. We can't even solicit for a computer because there is not electricity. If we need something computerized we have to go to Baguio)," lamented teacher Lorna Domingo, 26, who is handling grades 1 and 2 classes.
Their school was established in 1942, according to Sim and Domingo. Sim, like her daughter, studied in the same school.
The Balangabang Elementary School serves students coming from "nearby" sitios like Dig-ong and Salabao.
Tiffany Pasiw, 10, Maybelle's classmate and class valedictorian, comes from Dig-ong that she has to hike to and from school for an hour since Dig-ong is located in another nearby mountain.
"It's difficult to study," Tiffany shyly described how she reviews her lessons every night by candlelight.
"We are grateful for the arrival of electrricity because in the past we used to go out and look for pinewood to light our evening meals because gas is expensive. Secretary Reyes could have seen how difficult our road if only he was able to come)," said Carpeta Calado, 70, a resident of Sitio Balangabang.
The P21.9 million awarded by Reyes was the third release of the P100 million loan granted by NEA to help Beneco fulfill its mission for rural electrification in Benguet.
About 134 sitios in Benguet are targeted to benefit from the loan, including Balangabang, whose releases commenced in 2007 with P50 million, P32 million in 2008, and P18 million in 2009. Project implementation is until 2010.
