Solar-powered ice plant helps fishers in Basilan’s remotest parts

TABUAN-LASA, Basilan (MindaNews / 24 Feb) — The small islands comprising this young municipality south of the Basilan mainland are rich in marine resources with a lot of high-value varieties of fish. But local fishers faced a big problem: there is no electricity to run plants producing ice, a vital component in the fishing industry to reach markets far from home.

The solar-powered ice plant beside the municipal hall of Tabuan-Lasa. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

Luckily for the residentsof Saluping Island, the provincial government of Basilan built a solar ice block maker for the fishing community in the middle of 2024.

The islands are so idyllic and the fish so abundant that the municipality was an R&R (rest and recreation) destination of the Abu Sayyaf when the armed group was still actively operating in these parts and neighboring areas, according to Mayor Moner Manisan.

The potential earnings from fishing is so lucrative that Muamar Manisan, younger brother of the mayor who is also barangay chair of Bukut-Umus, sold the firearm he inherited from his father to start a “payao,” a fish aggregating device made mostly of coconut fronds and bamboo.

One of the fishing villages of Saluping Island in Tabuan-Lasa. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

“I started with one payao with the money I got from selling Ama’s firearm, and I was able to build 11 more within a year using the income from fishing,” he said during MindaNews’ brief visitat Saluping Island on Friday (Feb. 21). Muamar started his fishing venture in 2016, but eventually settled with six payaos because of heavier work load as barangay chairman.

A few more followed his footsteps, he said.

Fishing is the main livelihood in this town. Mayor Manisan said fishers usually buy their ice from vendors who get their supply from as far as Zamboanga City, at prices ranging from ₱200 to ₱240 per 10-kilo block.

Forty-year old Pating Punso, who specializes in catching octopuses, sells them right outside his house in Barangay Bukut-Umus. He used to buy ice from vendors who come from Maluso or Sumisip from in mainland Basilan at ₱200 per block. If supply was short, he would buy 10 home-made ice in ice candy wrappers at ₱10 each.

Fisher Pating Punso and his octopus catch. 21 February 2024. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

These days, he buys ice as big as that coming from Zamboanga, at only P60 per block from the solar-powered ice plant just 50 meters away from his home. “The local ice is not only cheaper, but also cleaner and lasts longer,” he told MindaNews.

Muamar said he paid ₱240 for the block of ice he bought from vendors who would come to the island. The blocks, he said, are originally bigger, weighing 40kg, but broken into four parts by the vendor and sold as 10kg blocks.

When they ran out of ice, the catch from Muamar’s payao would just rot. Sometimes, they would dry the squid as this is popular among consumers.

Tabuan-Lasa Mayor Moner S. Manisan. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

“We’re lucky here now because the ice is much cheaper, and lasts longer,” he smiled.

But it’s not only the fishers who have benefitted from the ice plant—sari-sari store owners and halo-halo vendors are happy, too.

“At least I now have bigger income because the ice is cheaper,” said Sitti-in Punso Saraman, a 27-year-old mother of three who sells halo-halo in her store by the roadside.

Saraman likes the ice she gets from the local ice plant because if she can’t consume one block for the day, she can still use the rest the next day, unlike the usual ice that melts within the day.

Halo-halo vendor Sitti-in Punso Saraman shaves ice. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

Arafat K. Imlan, the municipal employee running the solar ice block maker, said they usually produce 90 blocks of ice in a day. “But it’s not enough for the fishers’ needs alone,” he said.

Mayor Manisan said that so far, the ice plant could only service Bukut-Umus, one of the four barangays of Saluping Island. There are maybe 2,000 fishers in the four major islands of his municipality, which got its name by combining letters from the names of the four major islands—Tapiantana, Bubuan, Lanawan, and Saluping.

The mayor hopes more solar ice block makers will be installed in his municipality to serve the other islands.

The solar ice block maker was the brainchild of Ariel “Ayi” Hernandez, who has long been into peace-building and development work in many parts of Mindanao.

Arafat K. Imlan checks out the maintenance log of the solar-powered ice plant. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

“While going around Basilan, I noticed the abundance of fish, and many of them just rotting away,” he told MindaNews. “When I asked why, the residents said because there’s no ice, because there’s no electricity in the island,” he added.

“The richest fishing villages are far from the city centers, and thus far from the sources of electricity,” noted Hernandez.

If Basilan is far for most Filipinos, Tabuan-Lasa is Basilan’s farthest municipality, its islands located close to Sulu. Saluping Island, where the municipal hall is, is maybe about 8 kilometers (a 40-minute boat ride) from the Buli-buli port in Sumisip, Basilan mainland’s southernmost town.

Hernandez said one of his former business partners, a Dutch who has extensive knowledge on solar ice plants, made the initial design. Hernandez then consulted electrical engineers on how to make one, and asked them to include details of the parts needed.

The 10-kilo ice blocks produced in the solar-powered ice plant. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

He then formed the AASC Technologies Inc., hiring an industrial engineer and a mechanical engineer to put everything together using parts bought from China.

“We buy the best solar panels, inverters, batteries, and ice block makers from China and assemble everything here for the ice plant,” said John Louie Ablanque, the industrial engineer who is now AASC’s general manager. Hernandez is President for AASC.

Ablanque said AASC built its first solar ice block maker in October 2022, installing it in a fishing village by the Libungan Marsh in Barangay Datu Mantil in Pigcawayan, North Cotabato. (Datu Mantil is now part of the Special Geographic Area, or SGA, of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.)

Two years later, AASC has built and installed 12 more solar-powered ice plants in the BARMM, working closely with the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR). Hernandez said both the MILG and MAFAR want to install more ice plants all over BARMM.

Half of the ice plants in the BARMM were installed in Basilan because of Gov. Jim Hataman-Salliman’s advocacy to help the island-municipality’s fisheries sector, said Hernandez.

Ariel Hernandez (right) and John Louie Ablanque hop off a banca after a visit to Tabuan-Lasa. MindaNews photo by BOBBY TIMONERA

The other solar ice block makers that AASC built were installed in Datu Piang in Maguindanao del Sur, Barangay Datu Benasing of SGA, Parang and Kabuntalan in Maguindanao del Norte, Balabagan in Lanao del Sur, and Languyan in Tawi-Tawi.

Outside BARMM, Hernandez’s group recently installed a solar ice block maker in the island of Pilar in Cebu province when the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization, an agency under the Department of Agriculture, sought their help.

Hernandez said he is glad that their product is not only helping the fishers, but the communities and the local government units as well. He said that the ice plants, built using funds from BARMM and the provincial government, are then turned over to the municipal government, who will get the money from the sales.

Hernandez said that in the case of Tabuan-Lasa, that should be around ₱130,000 a month, less minimal expenses. The ice plant, he said, is built to last 10 years, with return of investment in four years.

“We are not only selling ice makers; we’re selling a community development intervention technology,” he said. (Bobby Timonera / MindaNews)