RECALLING a recent experience just added fuel to my rage against our legislators’ extravagant spending for both their personal and official comfort and convenience.
But first the facts. As of July 2016, there were 2.36 million households in the country that had no electricity. As of said date, the Philippines was only 89.6 percent electrified with many rural areas in the south, in Mindanao, having lower than national average level of electrification.
You wonder why? I’ll tell you why with my experience this year in getting electrical connection for my 4.5-hectare organic farm in Coronobe, Maragusan, Compostela Valley, now Davao de Oro.
To get electricity for my farm, which lies some two hundred meters, maybe more, from the road where the main electric distribution lines are strung, I had to spend P145,000 for parts and labor to buy and erect three electric posts (P15,000 each because you have to get them only from accredited suppliers), to buy and string electric wires on the posts, to buy and attach all other required gadgets like the electric meter and what have you.
And that was just to bring electricity to the farm’s perimeter edge. Connecting my light bulbs, motors and other appliances to the electric meter is still for scheduling and I don’t know how much more I will spend for it. I need electricity because I cannot increase the production of high-value vegetables if these have to be watered manually.
Anyway, now I know why households that are far from the main electricity distribution grid don’t have electricity. It simply costs too much to tap into the electricity supplied by, in our case, the local electric cooperative, Daneco (Davao del Norte Electric Cooperative).
Daneco was established in 1971 yet, and I’ve had my farm since 1987, but it took Daneco years to bring electricity to Barangay Coronobe of Maragusan town. It will take many more years for out-of-the-way households to get electricity because of the high connection cost.
This brings me to the question of why government cannot subsidize connection costs to inner barangay households like at least provide free electric posts and wires? How can our senators and representatives spend billions of pesos for their comfort and convenience when rural folk do not even have the minimum convenience of electricity because of prohibitive connection cost?
Farmers are feeding the nation, yet they are the least served by high government officials who would rather spend P4.5 billion for an office building and billions more for an executive jet, etc. than provide small farmers with housing, water and electricity.
Gentlemen, can we give farmers lights please? Can you worry more about them than ninja cops and Edsa traffic?