‘Tay la coma silaw a kinulding…

Dennis Posadas

Back in the late 1950’s when Bangui barrio folks like me still used the kingki (kerosene wicker lamp), or if you’re fortunate with some extra money, a Coleman gas lamp, to light the darkness, one of my aunts in Bangui went to Manila for the first time, stayed there for about a week.  When she came back home to Bangui where we didn’t have any electricity at the time (except, for instance, that huge lightning volt that killed my brother’s carabao instantly during a wicked thunderstorm one night in late summer), she and a bunch of neighbors were huddled around a bonfire of dried rice stalks one early cold morning when I distinctly heard my aunt, as she sucked one last gasp of smoke from her almost completely burnt out tobacco, ruefully said:  “‘Tay la coma silaw a kinulding…”  She was, of course, referring to the incandescent electric light bulb she saw in Tata Justo (Jose, Sr.) Padre’s house in Manila which she only had to flick the switch with her finger to turn it on or off.

Well, residents of Bangui eventually got the “silaw a kinulding” sometime in the late 60s and early 70s.  And to top it all, Banguinians are the first in the entire Philippines to have windmills along their shoreline to harness the awesome winds blowing in from the South China Sea and converting same into electricity which is pumped into the power grid.  And, of course, now the townsfolk can enjoy the benefits of a host of electric appliances and gadgets, such as refrigerators, electric fans, televisions, washing machines, stereos, computers, etc.

Solar Desk Fan

Now, if Dennis Posadas, former Intel engineer/analyst, prolific information technology author, columnist, blogger, and who is currently the Deputy Executive Director of the Philippines’ Congressional Commission on Science & Technology and Engineering, had his way, he would also have all those appliances and then some operated for FREE or almost FREE using solar power.  In “How the Philippines Can Be a Solar Power“, Posadas writes:  “The Philippines semiconductor and electronics industry, working closely with local universities, industries, and investors, can offer significant opportunities for innovation, particularly in solar energy applications development and manufacturing-process reengineering and optimization.”

The website home-solar-systems.com lists some of the most commonly used residential solar power applications. Such technology utilizes the heat coming from the sun for heating spaces and water. It can also be used for cooling spaces, ventilation, desalination, cooking and many other purposes.

The list of uses of solar power includes:  calculators with a small solar cell, solar battery chargers to recharge cell phones, Ipods, laptop computers and other small devices, solar panels known also as photovoltaic cells that transform the sun’s energy to electricity.  The more common use of solar power is of the residential variety–providing electricity for homes. In the latter case, solar panels are installed on the roof (photo at left) or on the ground and the electricity produced feeds a battery bank and an inverter providing 110 or 220 volts for the home. Other popular solar devices using solar technology are solar lights, solar fountains, solar pumps, solar refrigerators (ama, nalamlamuyot ngata ti ayus tay impalamiis a basi!), solar water heaters and solar fans. These products are now widely available and are a good example on how solar energy can be utilized to cut energy costs.

Ay wen, Ikit, dimo coma masapul ti mangipaburec iti danum a pangpatay ti lamiis diay nacabatia a pagbelnasmo. Wenno adda coma pagpaypaymo a paligpalig (solar fan) cadagiti calgaw a nadagaang.  Ken nasaysayaat nga amang ta awan baybayadam nga electric bill no daydiay coma solar light ti usarem a silaw a kinulding.

Trim food budget by growing veggies and fruit trees

Our calamansi in bloom and with fruits in winter

If your’re wondering what’s the point showing you in the immediately preceding blog entry a few of the fruit trees and vegetables we have grown in the backyard right here in Anaheim, California, it’s simply to state the obvious about those from Bangui or those who grew up in there in particular and most of the Ilocanos regarding their old food habits in general.  These are folks who moved out of Ilocandia who pine for the old fruits and vegetables that they got used to when they were growing up.

Unlike the Philippines where the weather actually favors growing most fruit trees and vegetables all year round, we in these parts go through these severe weather extremes–hot in the summer and icy cold in the winter making backyard gardening a real challenge. Yet we try to do everything to not run out of our favorite tropical fruits and vegetables.  Even as we brought the red mombin (sarguelas) completely shorn of its leaves inside the house to prevent it from dying due to the occasional frost, a few tropical fruit trees and vegetables actually survive the winter.  Our oranges, pumelo and mandarins ripen in the winter. Our calamansi and chico bears fruits all year round. Our Carribean papaya planted in May three years ago has large fruits right now. Even the balimbing fruits are trying to hang in there in spite of the wicked Santa Ana winds.  The parda, sweet pea and sayote thrive in the winter, and you can grow lasona and garlic in the cold as well.

The Ilocanos in Hawaii have it much better because aside from their rather warm and mild climate, they’ve got the rains every now and then–I believe they don’t have to worry much about watering their plants.  Every Ilocano in Hawaii seems to have a backyard garden such that there seems to be very few Asian groceries over there selling produce.

Fact is, for us Ilocanos who have moved out of our communities in Ilocandia–our drive to grow our own tropical fruits and vegetables has an added benefit, namely, it helps trim the family budget for food.  The savings may or may not be that significant.  But the fresh produce from the backyard with a minimum of time and money invested is, well, priceless!

Now a flashback to Bangui.  I was there in March last year when it was warm already.  I visited a few homes and I was surprised by the desire of some to cultivate euphorbia and some orchids in their backyards–but no vegetables.  Most of the houses have mangoes; some have chicos and a few others.  BUT NO VEGETABLES!  When they need the veggies, they go to the public market.  Or they rely on the old seasonal alocon that’s been growing in the wild (not planted).  Didn’t see many marunggay or catuday trees, nor camote, saluyot, winged beans (pal-lang), lima beans (patani) or parda growing in their backyards.  I found out that the old habit of waiting for the monsoon rains to wake up the saluyot seeds scattered in the wild the previous year still persists.

How would you go about changing our old iBangui habits and encourage our townsfolk to start puttering in their backyards and bring them alive with their own fruit trees and vegetables?  From the family budget angle? How about the fresh produce and convenience angles?

Wish we have the likes of Warren Buffett who, growing up in the Great Deppression in spartan beginnings in Omaha, Nebraska, to become a mega billionaire, could teach us how to save and invest a few pennies here and there and snowball the effort into something bigger–even only modestly, like backyard gardening to help trim the family food budget.

The Windmills of Bangui

Sooner or later, we have to talk about the Windmills of Bangui, the one icon for which the town of Bangui is famous for.  Much of the information about the windmills may be found at northwindspower.com and at YouTube and Google.com.

Phase I construction of the 15 windmills (rated at 25 MW) started on May 17, 2004 and they started to operate and joined the power grid under the Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative (INEC) on May 8, 2005.  The NorthWind Bangui Bay project was formally inaugurated on June 18, 2005, with then Ilocos Norte Governor Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. and his mother, former First Lady Imelda Marcos in attendance.  Gov. Marcos played a large part in orchestrating the construction of the windmills in Bangui–within his province.  Phase II was to have constructed an additional 5 turbines (rated at 8 MW) costing $13 million in 2008.  Phase III, when completed, will have brought the total construction cost for the Bangui Bay Project up to $75 million.  If you have stories about or pictures of the Bangui Windmills, please send them to joepadre@sbcglobal.net so we may use some here.

According to the NorthWind Power Development Corporation which oversees the windmills, “the production of clean energy in the town of Bangui is an example for the world to see. For visitors and the local community—not to mention the international community—the sight of the wind turbines serves to raise awareness on the need for environmentally sound practices. We need green technology, and the Bangui Bay Project shows that ‘going green’ can be a reality. This is green technology at its best.”

This green technology generates renewable energy coming from the wind–both abundant and inexhaustible–which, unlike fossil fuels, does not require burning and therefore it does not release harmful gases and other pollutants into the atmosphere and create so much problems with the ozone.  The whole process does not exacerbate the growing dilemma of global warming.  About the only complaint from the local fishermen is that those giant turbines generate so much noise that they claim somehow scare the fish away.

We bet you could identify the VIP in dark shades (photo at left) on her official visit to the Bangui Windmills.  She’s disarmingly petite but who knows how well she can use/abuse her awesome powers…

Do you know what foreign government and company are instrumental in bringing about the Bangui Windmills Project?