The Story of YAMOG: Empowerment of the Rural Power

            The national Democracy Movement in the Philippines, which opposed the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos and the martial law he imposed in 1972, was born in a harsh period of repression, but also generated a flowering of many civil society organizations.  Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) such as YAMOG (Cebuanao for Morning Dew) are descendants of this process.

YAMOG Beginnings          

            YAMOG started in 1993 with Nazario Cacayan (“Nonoy”) as the sole staff, assisted actively by Eduardo Balaba (“Dodong”), and, as they could, by Jun Jabla and Socrates Semilla (“Soc”), the four initial founders of YAMOG.  Although they had almost no money and little experience, they shared a vision for community-based development. As early as 1990, Nonoy and Soc attended a month-long training on micro hydro in Nepal organized by the Intermediate Technology Development Group, Inc ( now, the Practical Action).

           During this time, many funding support groups don’t provide financial assistance to projects involving renewable energy that entails infrastructure development. So it was difficult for Yamog to convince funding agencies to support these community-based initiatives.

            In 1994, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad funded YAMOG on a small budget to build a battery-charging station using pico hydro.  They picked the small village of Megkawayan because it had a strong locally-based NGO and community organization led by Dodong, who lived there with his family, called the Community Environmental Movers Foundation, Inc. (CEMFI). Megkawayan had developed a strong cohesion and capacity for self governance. Although the battery-charging station was not a technical success, this effort demonstrated that YAMOG could work with a community to put a project together. 

            Oxfam continued to provide a basic stipend for Nonoy, while in 1995 Terres des Hommes- Germany funded a 3 kW micro hydro project in Megkawayan for home lighting.  The project was completed in 1996 and ran successfully for 5 years.  By 2001, the national electric grid was extended to Megkawayan and the project was not large enough to be sustained and gradually fell out of use. 

            “Megkawayan was very important for YAMOG,” noted Nonoy “because it taught us the crucial need to mobilize the community to ensure sustainability based on a sense of community ownership and control.  But our technical level was still quite rudimentary.”

            In 1996, YAMOG became officially registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and started discussions with the community of Polocon about a 10 kW micro hydro project to bring home lighting to about 78 households and a corn miller to enhance farming income to the villagers and nearby villages in this isolated, but agriculturally rich village in the upland region of Davao City.  Oxfam CAA continued to pay for the administrative costs, primarily Nonoy’s salary and that of Soc, who started as staff with YAMOG in 1997.  Soc continued with YAMOG until the completion of the Polocon project in early 1999.  A grant from the UNDP- Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program covered the capital costs for Polocon of approximately $40,000 and 12 years later Polocon remains functioning.

            “After the Megkawayan project,” Nonoy summarized, “it was like YAMOG was in kindergarten. With the completion of Polocon, we maybe have reached elementary school.  We still did not understand how to mobilize the community deeply enough that they understood the need to charge themselves a tariff sufficient to maintain their project.  Our technical level was still too low and we had not really dealt yet with the difficult issues of hydrology.”

Deepening Development

            After Polocon was completed, the UNDP-Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program under Angie Cunanan, asked YAMOG to be its technical advisors for other micro hydro and renewable energy projects in Mindanao.  This partnership with the UNDP-GEF SGP led to YAMOG’s involvement in an indigenous community of Maglahus, a 15 kW micro hydro project to provide lighting and food processing. This system was completed in 1999 and is still operational today.

            With this increased workload in 1999, Jenny Arendain, a civil engineer, joined YAMOG to take charge of administration and project finances and Joel Motril, a biologist and water system expert, became Technical Devt Coordinator.  Lolot Amora later joined the YAMOG core staff as a bookkeeper. Dodong was also hired as Community Development Coordinator.  From this time on, YAMOG kept 5 staff as the core personnel and hired others as needed on a project basis, including Ben Barril, as community organizer and Boy Sim, a civil engineer, for technical work.

            In October 2000, YAMOG established contact with Green Empowerment, which sent a team to determine how the organizations could work together. The first joint activity involved assisting YAMOG to strengthen its technical capacity.  In 2001, Green Empowerment enabled Nonoy to join other partners in a two-week training on pico hydro technology in Nepal conducted by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) out of England.  

            Then in February 2002, Green Empowerment sponsored a three week training with a colleague, Kus Raharjo, a manufacturer of micro hydro equipment in Bandung, Indonesia.  The training at Raharjo’s manufacturing facility focused in a hands-on way on the most technical aspects of a micro hydro project- sizing and manufacture of the turbine and the electrical components.  “This was the most important technical training we had, where we sent two staff to attend” remembers Nonoy, “because it was not a general survey course and it focused on those aspects that were most difficult for us like turbine manufacturing.”

            In 2002, YAMOG, with UNDP GEF SGP  funding, completed the 20 kW Marahan project, providing lighting for 100 families and a smaller 5 kW project in at Tubajon in northern Mindanao.  Marathan is still operating, but Tubajon ceased operations after 3 years because of diminished water flow due to environmental degradation from mining.

            In 2003, Green Empowerment’s technical personnel conducted a solar training for YAMOG staff and supporters in Davao.  During this period, Green Empowerment also assisted YAMOG in establishing a partnership with Winrock/AMORE, a USAID funded program that was mandated to promote renewable energy projects in the conflict areas of Mindanao. Green Empowerment and YAMOG also met with the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), based in Manila, and leveraged a donation from Green Empowerment by a matching amount from PEF to pay for 2 community-based micro hydro and 2 water system feasibility studies.

            With their increased experience, technical competence and confidence, YAMOG became a technical implementer for AMORE, a USAID funded program. From 2003 through 2005, YAMOG completed 21 village solar lighting and battery-charging systems throughout Mindanao, all of which remain operational. 

            In 2004, YAMOG also completed the Saloy micro hydro system, funded by the UNDP GEF SGP, Winrock Intl.-AMORE and Green Empowerment.  Unfortunately, this system was operational for only three years before diminished water supply and an expansion of the grid made the electrical generating part of the system no longer viable.  The growing Saloy community, however, was able to continue use of the corn milling machinery.  Also in 2004, the Sangab 10 kW micro hydro project was completed in Caraga, Davao Oriental bringing lighting to 60 households of indigenous community and remaining operational to this day.

            “By the end of 2005, in addition to the 21 solar projects, we had completed 10 micro hydro projects,” noted Nonoy, “and our technical level was much more advanced, both through experience and because of the training we had received from our partners, particularly Green Empowerment.  To continue my schooling analogy, I think we were maybe nearly through high school by that time.”

            “Problems with communities not maintaining a high enough tariff to build a sufficient reserve fund and difficulties with some communities maintaining strong management controls, including retaining trained local operators, let us know that we still had to deepen our community involvement efforts. With our continuing community learning, we continued commited to the community-based approach that we had started with our first project in Megkawayan.”

              “In addition, as two of our micro hydro systems had ceased to operate because of insufficient water due to watershed degradation, we realized that we were missing the crucial hydrological, or environmental, aspect of successful community renewable energy systems.”

The Watershed & Environmental Component

            “Our next project started in 2004 with Tablo, a T’boli community at Lake Sebu in South Cotabato in southern Mindanao. This time we involved the University of the Southeastern Philippines (USEP) in Davao and Irvin Generalao, a PhD hydrologist.  We did not just rely on anecdotal memories of the farmers about water flow, but did 12 months of data gathering about river flow and its relationship to rainfall.  We also became convinced that we needed to do our projects where there were  larger water sources, both for environmental sustainability, so that there would be enough water to maintain the project, but also for economic feasibility, so that enough electricity could be generated to power income-generating enterprises.”

            “Although we still have a long way to go,” concluded Nonoy, “watershed work is now an integral part of all our water systems and micro hydro projects.  We realize better now that a system built on water cannot survive if the watershed that nurtures the water supply is not protected.”

            “For small watersheds, our watershed protection usually involves about 25 hectares (roughly 60 acres) and with a larger watershed, perhaps 25 hectares.  The typical Watershed Protection Plan usually involves replanting about 400-500 indigenous and fruit trees per hectare, agro-forestry, a community-based watershed management plan, assistance to the local Barangay (the smallest officially recognized and funded government unit) in developing a local environmental plan and ordinances on forest protection, and forest wardens.   With ten new micro hydro projects alone that could mean 250 hectares of protected and rehabilitated watershed and perhaps 80,000-100,000 replanted trees.  This is an area we consider very important,” mused Nonoy, “and perhaps we have not promoted what we do in watershed protection and its significance to the issue of global warming well enough.”

            Mindanao Renewable Energy Network

            In 2005, YAMOG organized the Mindanao Renewable Energy Network (MREN), which by 2010 had grown to a network of 17 Peoples Organizations and NGOs, in the communities where YAMOG has worked in the past.  “We wanted to create a vehicle where community-based organizations we had worked with could share their experience and aid each other in overcoming problems as they arise in the future.  We want to replicate what is best in all our collective work.”   Two universities in Davao City, University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) and Ateneo de Davao University are academic associates of MREN.  MREN hopes to be not only a vehicle for experience-sharing, but to take an active role in advocacy for renewable energy law and regulation, particularly for the rural regions.

            The 12 kilowatts Tablo micro hydro project was completed in 2006 serving over 1000 people, providing electricity for lighting, loom weaving and a rice mill. Starting about the same time, and also funded by the UNDP-GEF SGP, YAMOG completed a 28 kW project in Impasug-ong, Bukidnon in Central Mindanao. From 2007 through 2009, YAMOG started 9 new micro hydro projects, eight of which were completed by 2009 with one still under construction.  Three of the projects were in Negros Occidental, an island in the Visayan chain, and the other six were in various indigenous, Muslim, and Christian settlers communities of Mindanao.

            In 2008, Green Empowerment facilitated cooperation between the Alternative Indigenous Foundation Inc. (AIDFI), another NGO partner of Green Empowerment located in Negros in the Visayan area of the Philippines, and YAMOG for a ram pump water project in the Lake Sebu region. For the Amgu-o solar water pumping system, Green Empowerment helped YAMOG in locating funding partners and in 2007, Michel Maupoux, the Green Empowerment Technical Director, conducted a solar water pumping training for  YAMOG. Yamog also completed a gravity water system at Marilog District, Davao City.

            Manifesting its increased knowledge and technical sophistication, in 2010 YAMOG completed a 100-page case study of its micro hydro systems at Polocon and Tablo, “Community Based Renewable Energy Towards Sustainable Grassroots Communities.” YAMOG also has developed how-to-do-it manuals for micro hydro, ram pump, solar technology and water systems.  Although primarily addressed to the communities in which their projects have been established or will be built in the future, these documents are also seen as a way to educate the members of MREN and to disseminate the accumulated knowledge and expertise of YAMOG and its partners more broadly.

YAMOG Today

            Entering its fifteenth year, YAMOG is a mature organization.  “We have reached a certain level of technical competence with the hardware of renewable energy systems and with the crucial software infrastructure, which is the social-economic component of community involvement and training, and we have come to appreciate the need to emphasize the watershed component.  We still need to beef up the technical depth of our staff, especially as we expand our services to include wind and biomass/biogas. Our projects are not purely technical, but an integration of technology, community, and the environment.” 

            YAMOG is now in the process of developing a new Five Year Plan that will guide the organization in this upcoming period.  Although not formalized, it calls for concentration in regions where 4 or 5 community projects as an energy corridor approach can be completed, rather than the past approach, which generally has been to undertake one project at a time.

            “Looking to the future, we have developed better criteria for evaluating which communities are more likely to succeed.  Can the community pay enough to sustain their system?  Will the project allow the community to generate enough additional money through agricultural processing, such as corn and rice mills, coffee depulpers, abaca strippers, loom weaving to aid weavers or other enterprises, not only to improve income and quality of village life, but also to build a reserve fund? ”

            “The main core of YAMOG is empowerment of the rural poor. Micro hydro, or any other renewable energy, is simply a tool to allow the community to control their own resources and environment.”  Nonoy’s comments are understated, but reflect YAMOG’s deep social commitment.