The Light Brigade

“Good people are like lighted candles. The darker the night, the brighter they shine.”

Darkness is a curse, not a condition. It can be alleviated by a source that gives off light freely and wantonly — the sun!

Fifteen million Filipinos are cursed with dark nights because they have no access to electricity. They depend on kerosene lamps, which sometimes burn their skin and raze their huts to the ground.

Two teenagers, Tricia Peralta and Mark Lozano, have brought the light and warmth of the sun to thousands of poor homes by mobilizing donors — individual and corporate — to the light of their cause.

Just before they were to enter college, Tricia and Mark already thought of both giving back to society, and paying it forward. Tricia is currently a freshman at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. She is taking up B.S. in Business Administration and Accountancy.

Inspired by One Million Lights, a California-based foundation that aims to light up the world’s poorest communities, Tricia and Mark joined hands to light up two poor barangays in Catanduanes that were dependent on hazardous kerosene lamps. They formed One Million Lights - Philippines (OMLP).

According to OMLP, a solar lamp costs only P1,500, and can be in use for 10 years. After a five-hour exposure to sunlight, it can last five to 12 hours in the dark.

Tricia with her proud parents Lizette and Butch Peralta.

Because of these two college freshmen, thousands of Filipinos are seeing the light — and thousands more are seeing the light of giving. In just a year, Tricia and Mark have lit up the lives of 18,296 people.

During the celebration of the 26th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution, Tricia and Mark received the “Spirit of EDSA” award from President Aquino.

By the time these two teenagers graduate from college, perhaps there will be no more Filipino home left in the dark. This is their story:

Tricia:

One Million Lights - Philippines (OMLP), for me, began after Mark Lozano, my friend from Southridge, came back from the Global Youth Leaders Conference (GYLC) in Washington, D.C. in 2010, and suggested that we help the less fortunate. 

Unlike Mark, there was no single defining moment in my life that made me decide to start OMLP.

In my senior year of high school, I felt tired and burnt out. I studied hard to be a consistent Gold Medalist, I led the Badminton Varsity Team as Captain, and I reached the finals in many local debate tournaments, I was active in the theater productions of my school among many other things. There came a point where I stopped seeing the bigger picture of why I had to do all these little things.

A few weeks after Mark’s GYLC, in a debate tournament after a round centered on a disastrous environmental themed topic, Mark and some of our friends started joking about solutions — planting trees, recycling, etc. Then Mark dropped the ball and said let’s give solar-powered lights. I do not know where Mark got this idea but I knew that this was a smoking gun. After that tournament, Mark and I played with the idea of lighting up a village among other things. Within a week, we were committed to the idea.

At first, it was hard to believe that anything would come out of the idea especially since we were busy with schoolwork. But, when we were finally able to contact the main OML Team in California and received a very encouraging response from them, we were energized.

In that same week, I found two barangays desperately in need of help through my relatives in Catanduanes. We contacted people from Catanduanes who could help us with the project in Barangay Dugui Too and Dugui Wala, two of the poorest barangays in the Philippines. 

We faced a lot of obstacles. First, our age was a major hurdle as people doubted whether we could pull off an ambitious project like this. Many of the first organizations we approached for help turned us down. When I first went to a meeting in corporate attire, people kidded me, “Did you buy the suit just for this meeting?” While we were discouraged, we plodded on. We continued to pray. My Dad said that God would help us since our project was for the purpose of helping other people and that we were sincere in helping others. Sure enough, after a few more months of making presentations, we were able to get sponsors like Philippine Airlines, which airlifted the solar-powered lights for free from China, and a customs broker, The Certified Brokerage Corp., which worked pro bono.

Fundraising was another daunting task. We sold Christmas cards, and solicited funds from family and friends. My Mom joked that she had bought so many Christmas cards that she said she had a lifetime supply already.

After a year of mishaps, including getting the lights lost, on April 10, 2011, I finally found myself on a one-hour flight to Virac, Catanduanes, and then on our way by land to Dugui Too, with 30 youth counterparts in Catanduanes and 250 solar lights on the back of a dump truck. I found it hard to believe that all our work was finally coming to fruition. After almost two hours of travelling by land from Virac, going through mountains, and crisscrossing rivers, we finally arrived at Barangay Dugui Too. Cogon houses dotted the area, and in the center was a dilapidated community hall. This was where we set up our distribution center. While we didn’t exactly receive an exuberant welcome, we didn’t let that discourage us.

A kerosene lamp, a fire hazard that has victimized many children.

After a few hours, however, the 250 villagers who received the solar lights were smiling. We taught them how to operate the lights and as they learned how to switch them on, we saw their faces light up, too. By switching to solar-powered lights, they would be able to free themselves from the limitations and hazards of kerosene lamps. The 30 percent of their daily income spent on kerosene could be channeled towards the education of their children and other basic needs. Before we left Catanduanes, a youth volunteer wrote us a letter. He wrote, “Good people are like lighted candles. The darker the night, the brighter they shine.”

Throughout the entire process, my family’s support was very instrumental to me. First, my grandmother on my Mom’s side served as one of my inspirations. She herself gave housing units to a sitio in Catanduanes, among many other projects. When I was growing up, she would always invite indigent strangers to our Noche Buena. While at first I had resented the presence of these strangers at supposedly family gatherings, I came to realize that what my grandmother was doing was the true essence of Christmas — sharing with the less fortunate. Second, my grandfather on my Dad’s side, put us in touch with PAL, one of our sponsors. He encouraged us not to be intimidated by older corporate people but to just talk to them as I would normally talk to him. Third, my Uncle Rene and Aunt Vey in Virac helped us identify the poorest communities in Virac. My uncle Rene’s wife, Vey, is also another role model. She is a UP Medicine graduate who chose to practice rural medicine in Catanduanes instead of embarking on a more lucrative career here in Manila. Needless to say, my parents and family encouraged and supported me during this whole process. My seven-year-old brother even raises funds from his grade 2 classmates in school.

This summer, in partnership with Energizer, we are planning to go to different provinces — Mindoro, Kalinga-Apayao, Mountain Province, Eastern Samar, Cebu and Rizal — to distribute 2,950 lights to more isolated and impoverished rural communities. We hope that these lights will also light up the lives of more than 15,000 Filipinos.

When we met President Aquino, he told us that there are 36,000 sitios in the country without access to electricity. I hope that our work will lead to eventually providing safe, clean lighting to these communities. It is a big commitment, but I hope that with help from God and others, I will be able to help light up the homes of Filipinos.

As for my dreams, I hope to work for the World Bank or Asian Development Bank. I realized I have to give back to my country in whatever way possible, for the simple reason that I have the ability to do so. Pushing myself beyond my limits for One Million Lights - Philippines made me realize that in order to change the country, I have to start with myself.

(Next week: Mark Lozano’s story)

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)