Earth Hour plus

BENCHWARMER
Ramon S. Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- While those outside committed an hour, those committed to the city jail have committed three hours in tonight’s “Earth Hour”, the annual electricity switch-off that people of Sydney, Australia pioneered two years ago.

Last year, the prisoners extended their energy saving to two hours. Tonight, jail warden, Supt. Rebecca Pawid will have the courtyard and the cells plunge into darkness at 6:30 p.m., two hours ahead of cities around the world participating in this rather symbolic gesture to save on energy and fossil fuel contributing to climate change.

Philippine organizers of “Earth Hour” say the recurrent power shut-offs can’t be deemed and equated as forced savings. The so-called brown-outs are triggered by failure to produce energy due to this season of drought drying up our rivers harnessed to run the power-generating turbines of our dams. You can’t save what you haven’t produced.

Even the term “brown-out” is a misnomer. The Benguet Electric Cooperative, which is in the know, qualifies that what we are now and then experiencing is a black-out, in the same vein that the tool scooping coal., for all intents and purposes, is a spade – or a shovel.

Whatever. What matters is the fulfillment of the inmates over having helped make a difference with the outside world, within the four walls and ceilings they stare at day in and day out. What matters most is “Earth Hour” restores their self-worth over being able to contribute to the community at large they somehow feel they still belong to.

That’s why former city administrator Peter Fianza and his fellow lawyers Jose “Bubut” Olarte and Rolly Vergara will be in jail tonight, same place they found themselves in this time last year for “Earth Hour Inside”..

Fianza, whose usual quiet presence already inspires, will deliver a message validating the inmates’ contributions and efforts towards reform and transformation.. Olarte and other folk and country musicians will again pierce the darkness in an unplugged concert of sorts that voices the aches, dreams, hopes and the resolve to be free, productive and useful and to be of service to God, country and family.

Before message and song, the inmate officers will light up the courtyard with a mood-setting candle prayer. In a most orderly, peaceful, honest political exercise last year, they were duly elected “punong barangay” or “kagawad” of “Barangay Pag-asa” to symbolize their sense of community like that of any other honest-to-goodness barangay outside.

Early this year, respected Baguio lawyer Pablito Sanidad, the former national chair of the Free Legal Assistance Group, asked election officials to go to prison and register qualified inmates so they can vote in the national polls in May. Sanidad had done this about a decade back, when inmates were escorted out to cast their votes.

Beyond “Earth Hour”, the prisoners will mark “Earth Day” this April.. They had Noelle, Sanidad’s youngest child, as guest of honor on ”World Environment day” last year. She called them models in segregating and recycling trash into works of art or bags and ornaments.

“Kailagan din kaming tumulong sa kalinisan at sa laban sa global warming,” kagawad Paul said. “Mahirap na, dahil baka uminit masyado ang mundo at ilipat ang city jail sa buwan.”

Tonight, they’re looking forward to again having Beneco witness their energy-saving effort and later to supporting the second issue of “The Insider”, perhaps the first-ever prisoners’ in-house newsletter in the country and the world.

So see you in jail tonight, before the blackout. As in last year, warden Pawid, and the inmates themselves assure they will still be there when the lights are switched back on after 180 minutes.