Sunstar Davao
A COAL-FIRED plant will help improve lives, not only for those who will have jobs as plant workers but especially for children in public schools and families whose lives were changed, a public school principal in Misamis Oriental reported Thursday.
Despite the outward opposition on the proposed 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant that the AboitizPower corp. is planning to put up in the boundaries of Davao City in Barangay Binugao and Barangay Inawayan, Sta. Cruz, many still attest to the brighter side of having a coal-fired plant.
Resureccion Padon, Villanueva National High School principal, told local media that they realized having a coal-fired plant is not all bad at all.
Prior to the granting of necessary permits for the plant to operate sometime in 2004, several environmental groups along with socio-civic groups had opposed to the proposal of building the plant in Villanueva.
The groups cited the negative impact of the plant to the environment as well as the long-term effects on the health of residents.
Padon says the lack of facilities and proper electrical supply contributed to the high dropout rate of their school.
When STEAG power plant started to operate in Villanueva, their school along with other public schools, started to experience proper electrical services and facilities.
Padon said while others may say that a mere electrification of a power company is a natural scenario, for them, it is more than this.
He said after electrification, their school and several others experienced a decrease in the dropout rate.
Presently, the school has a 0.08 drop-out rate, which means, for every 100 high school students, only eight does not finish the whole school year.
Aboitiz is one of the part owners of the STEAG power plant while majority of its share is owned by a German company and a Chinese businessman from Iloilo.
"Without STEAG, the school will go on, but hinay ang (slow) progress," Padon said.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Banag, one of the wives and mothers who were displaced when the plant started constructing its plant, was among those who opposed it.
But she says her family's life was changed after the plant was built.
Banag was only one of those women who were trained by the plant for livelihood skills. She along with 28 others, finished the course on food processing. After which, STEAG hired them as cooks for the top officials of the company during and after he construction period of the plant.
With the training and the experiences, her group put a manpower agency which now supplies staff to the company from simple grass cutters to plant workers.
At present, they already helped 40 more people by providing employment and by placing them for work in the firm.
While they were displaced along with more than a thousand families from the typical shanties, now they own a better house in better location.
Both Padon and Banag attest that having a plant brings hope and promise to the community.
Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on April 11, 2011.
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