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2015 HOLCIM PHILIPPINES-PPI JASCOR WINNERS AND FINALISTS National Newspaper Category Winners: The Maryknoll Nuns' Earth House Provides Calm in a City of Chaos Marilou Guieb BusinessMirror June 7, 2015 Strong, Cheap Homes for Yolanda victims Mozart Pastrano Philippine Daily Inquirer Dec. 2, 2014 Finalists: First LEED-Certified School Hopes to Prepare Youth to Be Stewards of the Environment Kenneth M. Del Rosario Philippine Daily Inquirer March 28, 2015 A Power Plant on Every Roof Doris Dumlao Philippine Daily Inquirer Sept. 22, 2014 Yolanda-Stricken School Reopens with New Disaster-Resilient Buildings Epi Fabonan III The Philippine Star June 15, 2015

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WINNER The Maryknoll Nuns' Earth House Provides Calm in a City of Chaos Marilou Guieb BusinessMirror June 7, 2015

BAGUIO City has always been known to be the escape from the oppressive heat and chaos of modern cities. But no longer, as visitors and residents alike are feeling the big shift from the chilly air to concrete island heat, pine-clad open spaces to traffic snarls, and the noise of a city that has gone awry in the mad scramble to be a competitive commercial district. A few pockets of green and spiritual spaces remain the saving grace. One is the quiet Cosmic Journey designed by the Maryknoll nuns in their Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary (MES), which feels like a waiting oasis of calm, a quick short turn from the Marcos Highway, one of the most stressful spots of traffic in the city. The sanctuary stroll goes through the stone walkways on a spiraling slope, like the journey from earth to ethereal places, exploring the wonder of creation through 14 stations. The tour asks that you depart from the confusion of day-to-day chaos and be awed by the miracle of evolution. The Cosmic Gate leads to pathways strewn with flowers and ferns and shaded by towering pine trees, bringing one to stations that go back in time. It tells the story when caves were sanctuaries, till the time when religion and cultures were shaped.

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The trail ends in a delightful and rather curious shelter, a fusion of old architectural wisdom and modern construction. A hybrid to blend the past with the present, said its builder, Emma Villanueva. It is called the Earth House.

During the launch of the structure, Villanueva started the story of how she built it with humor. People have asked her, “Are you an architect?” To which she answered “No” with a laugh. Are you a contractor? An engineer? Are you a nun? All of these amused her. For, in fact, she had no notion at all of the principles of construction when the project was handed to her. So she took to experimentation and a lot of common sense. Yet, the Earth House, for its integrity and aesthetics, was one praised by architects and engineers, who now and then come to check out the progress of her work and asked her for building tips. The Earth House and how it began THE Maryknoll nuns renovated a building and ended up with construction debris that were still of use and dumped them on an empty space that has now become the end of the Cosmic Journey. The Maryknoll directress then, Sis. Catherine Encarnacion—Sister Cathy as she is called—thought it would be a perfect spot to complete the journey, a statement that one has reached the present while serving as a restful viewing experience.

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Villanueva lived a stone’s throw away from the Maryknoll compound. Maryknoll then had a lot of artistic activities going on and the energy beckoned to her curious nature, for one can say she was a lady always in quest for enrichment of mind. She and Sister Cathy soon became fast friends, and soon she found herself engrossed in refurbishing an old bodega space into a café kitchen. She opened up some walls for the light to come in, put some antique doors and posts, set up hand- hewn hardwood counters and brightened up some spots with colorful weaves and put some accent baskets, turning the dark interior into an inviting nook. Sister Virginia, MES directress, in charge of the renovation, was pleased and impressed and when the idea of a new shelter at the Cosmic Trail came up, she looked at Villanueva and said, “You are the right person for this.” Before coming home to the Philippines, Sister Cathy had served in missions in Latin America and seen cobhouses (earthern houses), commonly also seen in Africa and Europe, and had a long fascination for these structures because they were made from available resources and community spirit. Right away then, the concept of a hybrid house, recycling the material set aside from the earlier renovation blended into a cobhouse project, came to mind. Villanueva at first was intimidated with the idea, never ever having been into any construction activity in her life. But her enthusiasm for new things and the persuasion of Sister Cathy prevailed. It was going to be a labor of love, and Villanueva told herself, “Learn from it.” That was going to be reward enough. But funds were needed, and the indomitable Sister Cathy organized a “lunch for a cause” on her birthday, and raisedthe funds as gifts from heirs of Juan and Damiana Fabella. A family member and artist, Ara-Santos-Halili, drew the designs that became the seeds of the final work. There was no turning back. Villanueva stood on the spot and studied the sun. It was strongest on the south so there the sun must come in, and the north to be protected. She then tapped the expertise of Zelimir Stuggart, who built a cobhouse. Stuggart, would say that houses in Baguio where it is always cold and rainy must be of natural material where walls can breathe. Otherwise, mildew will form and make the settlers sick. His own house had withstood the storms of more than a decade, built by artist friends. Stuggart started the earth house, building a stone foundation high enough to protect the mudwalls from touching the ground.

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Then it was time for her to be on her own. She browsed the Internet and instruction materials. Working from scratch, she experimented with the clay soil right where she was building, trying different mixtures of clay, sand and straw, drying them in brick sizes then dropping each until she got just the right formula where the clay bricks didn’t break when dropped to the ground. Handful by handful, they cobbed the mud into the bamboo slats put on walls, shaping the mud around window and door frames. The wall went around like a mandala, optimizing the feature of the clay that can be sculpted and shape houses in graceful curves. Weekends became fun workshops as groups wanting to learn came to knead clay with their feet, which incidentally is like a good foot spa. Villanueva acquired new skills as she went on. One was cutting wine bottles and jars, a lot of colored ones, which were inserted into the bamboo weaves and became part of the wall. A wall with colored glass is beautiful, but aside from its aesthetics, it lets natural light to come in. Cutting glass using the principle of heat then dipped in cold water also became occasional workshops for the curious. Villanueva worked with the makers of the Pitak project, Cye Reyes and Carol Galvez, who down in La Union had also experimented with a shed made of cobbing material. They also facilitated the workshops. The Earth House progressed organically, the sun, the landscape, available material and the creative whims of Villanueva dictating the design. It helped that Villanueva was from a family of furniture makers and antique enthusiasts in Vigan. From their stock of old wood and darkened antique pieces, Villanueva put accents in the interior, giving a touch of warmth and coziness to the open space. After more than half of her construction was done, Villanueva was completely enamored with the idea of sustainable construction and traveled to Thailand to take up a hands-on course on natural building and cobhouses at the Pun Pun Center. “From that Thailand experience, I learned that you can make earthen houses really beautiful,” Villanueva said, as she showed some pictures of cobhouses she had visited there. She also mastered the technique in making adobe bricks—cobwork sometimes referred to as adobe. “Some of the oldest houses in Vigan were really of these adobe bricks, but dry-fired or baked,” she said, adding that so were old clay ovens, which she intends to build for baking bread and pizza in her Maryknoll eatery.

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Villanueva asserts that even as natural building and mudhouses excite her, she is not a purist and has, in fact, read on conventional building, utilizing the principles in her construction. Interior dividers are of Styrofoam fitted into steel mattings then covered with cement, recycled from the renovation debris. A fireplace sculpted to an interesting funnel shape is a living-room accent. Her kitchen-sink area is done in Italian tiles, expensive if not for the fact that she got a box of broken tiles that hardware stores sell for P40 a box and cut them to fit. What is so striking in the Earth House are how the colored light filter bottles reflect so starkly beautiful against the white walls. “We used lime coating, which is white. Lime is still a natural mineral that allows the walls to breathe,” she said. She had samples of natural dyes—indigo, red, orange—that she sourced from village women who still knew the plants that gave the beautiful hues of dyes. Her walk-in toilet bathroom is paved with Pasuquin stones from Ilocos Norte. Indeed, the story of creating the Earth House takes you to her road adventures, as she often jumps behind the wheel and drives off where she finds treasures to add to the Earth House. The roofing is of cogon grass installed with sprinklers in case it catches fire. Because her project attracted so many alternative builders, the Halili family, distributor of Sunpower solar panels, offered four panels, each with a 100-watt capacity. Villanueva again hurdled the difficulty of installing them, clasping them with angle bars to the bamboo rafters. “My mantra is everything has a solution,” she said. To keep water away from the house, she also dug a French drain with a perforated pipe under and covered with pebbles, the gutter gushing water exactly where it is. A spacious loft is an added sleeping area. When it was all done, Villanueva sat inside to reflect on its weak spots. The site surrounded by tall pine trees is dark. Next time I should think about daylight roofing or tempered glass, she said, to maximize passive lighting. The Earth House comes with a message. Villanueva, totally naïve about construction, emerged a certified hybrid builder. And if she can do it with just mud, sand and water, so can communities, and governments—and no one needs to be ever homeless.

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WINNER Strong, Cheap Homes for Yolanda victims Mozart Pastrano Philippine Daily Inquirer Dec. 2, 2014

HOME IS WHERE HEART IS Marina Natividad in front of her new house, which UN Habitat helped build in Roxas City. The house, which has a four-sided roof and walls of concrete hollow blocks, can withstand powerful winds. PHOTO COURTESY OF UN HABITAT ROXAS CITY, Philippines—Marina Natividad, 69, clutched a handful of flickering candles as she haltingly stepped inside her new home a year after Super Typhoon “Yolanda” pummeled this serene western Visayan outpost, toppling an ironwood electric post that crashed into her shanty. It’s on the same corner lot in Barangay (village) Baybay, where her old house stood. But it’s no longer made of patched-up scraps that housed her family for 18 years. Designed to resist wind loads of 200 to 250 kilometers per hour, her new house marks its modest 4.4 by 4.4-meter floor area (in solid concrete) with four reinforced concrete corner columns and four mid-wall stiffener columns—all topped with a reinforced concrete roof beam.

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The lower walls, made of hollow blocks, segue to upper walls made of split bamboo nudged into a tight fit, slat intertwined into the next slat in a neat back-to-back manner and clinched by sturdy wooden frames. These walls, a salute to the wisdom of vernacular architecture that allows passive cooling, give way to clear, glass jalousie windows for natural lighting and ventilation. Four-sided roof The unique visual signature of the house, however, is the four-sided roof known as “quatro aguas,” designed to withstand strong winds, such as those ushered in by Yolanda (international name: Haiyan). The roof has a wooden truss supporting the hip and common rafters, ensuring further structural integrity. (What’s more, the specs insisted on 0.4-millimeter CGI roofing with extra perimeter nailing and ridge roll.) Nanay Marina’s new house, designed as “the new normal” in our disaster-prone archipelago in these times of climate change, has provisions for electricity, plumbing and sanitation systems for kitchen and toilet facilities, with allowances for future expansions. “Now we can go on with our lives,” said Nanay Marina. “Our heartfelt thanks to all those who made this possible.” Community-driven But the accolade goes first and foremost to Nanay Marina and her family, for they were crucial in making all this possible. “Her daughter, Diosa, was so caught up in the construction work that she would sometimes forget to prepare lunch, and it would only be late in the afternoon when she would take out her fishing boat with her hungry 7-year-old son to catch the fish they needed to cook for the family that day,” said Warren Ubongen, disaster risk reduction and shelter specialist of UN Habitat. The group is spearheading this pioneering community-driven approach to recovery and rehabilitation in the Post-Yolanda Support for Safer Homes and Settlement project. Ubongen pointed out that Nanay Marina’s daughter, Alma, got the land by paying about P400 a month over the years through their neighborhood home owners’ association (HOA). The association is enrolled in the Community Mortgage Program of Social Housing Finance Corp. (SHFC), a government corporation that helps communities acquire land through shared community ownership and responsibility. Land issues

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The humanitarian frenzy to put roofs over the heads of Yolanda victims has resulted in the construction of temporary shelters, at best, because permanent shelters are bedeviled by land issues. The current practice is that the national government forks out money for the construction of houses but burdens the local government units with providing the land on which to build the houses. As a result, many victims of past storms, including Tropical Storm “Ondoy,” still stay in temporary shelters. Official estimates peg at 1.1 million the number of houses destroyed or damaged by Yolanda. 205,000 houses The national government is committed to build 205,000 houses in the Yolanda corridor, which includes more than 100 cities and municipalities on several islands, such as Palawan, Mindoro, Panay, Cebu, Leyte and Samar. “There is a concurrence among decision-makers in the shelter sector to provide at least 100,000 houses or permanent shelters in the wake of Yolanda,” said Christopher E. Rollo, country program manager for the Philippine office of UN Habitat. “But based on the historical housing production output, this is indeed a challenge. Does this mean that the Yolanda housing backlog will take years to address? And to think that we have to consider other disasters to come our way since the country is hit by an average of 20 typhoons a year,” Rollo said. He and his team at UN Habitat are showing the way to go about this conundrum. Home partners They partnered with the SHFC to ensure that housing beneficiaries—the term they use is “home partners”—would own their land to begin with, forestalling any land issues that would hamper the construction of houses. “As it turned out, Roxas City and nearby outlying areas have the most number of SHFC Community Mortgage Program projects in the country,” said Robert Deutsch, project manager of UN Habitat’s Roxas City office. His staff is currently working with 24 communities in the area. Eligibility criteria

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“The HOAs in the communities own the project. They determine who among their members are eligible for housing grants. The eight criteria of eligibility ensure that the selected home partners were indeed rendered homeless by Yolanda and do not have the resources to build new houses,” he said. After determining eligibility, the community receives the housing grants through the HOAs, which are enabled to handle the finance, purchasing, construction and audit. “The community HOAs were at first amazed at the amount of money in their bank account, but then they proceeded with transparency and accountability,” Deutsch said. “This community-driven approach is at the heart of this project. We have done this in other countries, notably in Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. We call it the People’s Process,” Rollo said. 30 percent cheaper “Since the grant is given directly to the community, the houses are 30 percent cheaper because there are no contractors’ or middlemen’s fees. Then the project injects cash into the local economy. Since the community is building their own homes, construction is faster and there is no cutting of corners in terms of quality,” he said. “Moreover, the community people are trained and become employable, opening doors for income opportunities not just for this project but for other projects. In fact, some of the people we trained are sought after in their neighborhood because they have been trained the UN Habitat way of good quality housing construction,” he said. The design of the house to be constructed was developed in collaboration with the Capiz chapter of United Architects of the Philippines, and its structural integrity has been checked by the Capiz chapter of the Association of Structural Engineers of the Philippines. Project coverage The housing project, funded with $2.5 million from the Japanese government and cofunding from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, covers the following: — Training of some 368 local semi-skilled artisans in disaster risk-resilient housing construction — Construction of 610 houses by the locally trained artisans — Conduct of community training on self-assessed house improvement for 4,000 households — Community action planning workshops throughout Panay Island

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— Infrastructure support for 24 communities — Support for a national campaign with SHFC and other agencies on disaster-resilient housing techniques — Information, education, communication materials for national advocacy on people’s process for recovery and rehabilitation — Construction of community multipurpose centers with BDO Foundation On the day Nanay Marina settled into her new home, Capiz Gov. Victor Arancillo joined UN Habitat in turning over housing units to other home partners. Windows of opportunity During the official ceremony, Arancillo said: “I had never seen so much destruction in my life. For three hours, Yolanda felt like it was the end of the world. I thought that we were being punished by God. But now, having seen the outpouring of support after the devastation, I realize that God was not closing doors on us. He was actually opening windows of opportunity.” “In a sense, we can say that [the situation of some people] is far, far better than it was before the typhoon. Now, some of you have new houses that are sturdier than what you had. Take good care of your new homes,” he said. Nanay Marina danced with glee at her new home in Barangay Baybay, pausing for a while to say a prayer before the statues of the Santo Niño and the Crucified Christ on her altar, which also showcases photographs of her triumph in her younger days. Home, indeed, is where the heart is.

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FINALIST First LEED-Certified School Hopes to Prepare Youth to Be Stewards of the Environment Kenneth M. Del Rosario Philippine Daily Inquirer March 28, 2015 The Multiple Intelligence International School (MIIS) is set to build the country’s first LEED-certified campus, complete with innovative facilities that would help lower the school’s carbon footprint, manage wastewater, make air more breathable, and reduce noise levels, among many other initiatives. The 3,000-sqm establishment, which will rise along Katipunan Road in Quezon City, is part of the school’s program to mold a new breed of young environment stewards who are prepared to make a difference in taking care of the Earth. “The school will serve as a laboratory for environmental technology and innovations that can positively impact and serve as a model for other schools and buildings in the country,” said Joy Abaquin, the school’s founding directress. MIIS is the first educational institution in the Philippines that bases its approach on the multiple intelligence framework implemented, as opposed to the academic-centric schools in the country. The school, which opened 19 years ago, aims to break down barriers, inculcating in its students that intelligence and leadership is for all. It had more than 600 students in the last school year. An LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification means the MIIS Green School meets the sustainability standards set by the aforementioned entity in terms of materials used, the structural design, and the systems and policies that will govern the school. The school’s wastewater technology and water management facility, once in place, will reduce the amount of potable water needed for sewage conveyance, by using a network of water collection facilities such as roof gardens, underground storm water storage, and permeable walkways. This will help lessen the volume of sewage that leaves the site, while reducing infrastructure works, chemical inputs, energy use, and emissions at municipal water treatment works. “We to instill a culture of environmental sensitivity among our children. The best way to do this is to make the children see the effects of their everyday actions and allow them to play an active role in environmental conservation,” she said. Once completed, the MIIS Green School will be able to serve as a barrier to noise and air pollution through a network of mechanical ventilation systems (wind catchers, air filters, etc.)

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and cooling technologies that filter polluted air. These facilities should increase breathing air ventilation rates by 30%, well above industry standard. With dense vegetation, the school also seeks to significantly reduce noise levels. “It’s a step that we hope would have a ripple effect, so campuses around the country may also adapt the core practices of education for sustainable development,” said Abaquin. The school would also be using low emitting furnishing and furniture materials, composite wood, and agrifibers in the construction, as well as thermal comfort lighting systems and technologies to improve indoor environment quality. Aside from the school’s green features, the building is also designed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake. Because of this, the MIIS Green School becomes a center for disaster preparedness for its neighboring communities. “The safety and protection of our children, the concern for their future, and thus the environment, should be everyone’s responsibility,” the teacher said. To ease traffic flow in the area, the MIIS Green School will employ an innovative master-planned traffic management system that includes the use of multi-level floors where students can be dropped off or picked up, similar to those used in many developed countries. The building of the first LEED-certified school in the country shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who are familiar with MIIS. Over the years, the school has participated in several eco-friendly activities like the MAD for the Environment Cabantoc Reforestation Project, which aims to reforest the Makiling Watershed; the Rainforest Cafe, which aims to raise awareness about the current state of the country’s rainforest. The school had also launched several information campaigns like the “One Act for Mother Earth” and the “Go Green, Go Zero Waste;” as well as the Kids Can! Save the Environment, a call for the young to use their intelligence to protect the environment; and the Energy Pledge, which encourages students and their families to reduce energy consumption in their homes. Most recently, MISS hosted a run-by-any-means fun run at the University of the Philippines Diliman Academic Oval, which attracted hundreds of families. “We wanted to encourage everyone to make a stand to ensure a green future for today's kids. The activity also serves as an awareness campaign on the environment’s vulnerability for which we should be responsible,” Abaquin said. For MIIS, it’s never too early to impart love for the environment to its students.

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FINALIST A Power Plant on Every Roof Doris Dumlao Philippine Daily Inquirer Sept. 22, 2014

HERE COMES THE SUN Entrepreneur Leandro Leviste shows Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla the roof deck of Central Mall Biñan, the country’s first solar-powered mall. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO MANILA, Philippines–This 21-year-old entrepreneur dreams of converting every roof deck in the Philippines into a power plant, banking on improvements in solar technology to help deal with the country’s looming power supply shortfall. Leandro Leviste, founder and president of Solar Philippines— the country’s first all-in-one solar financing, design, construction and maintenance company—took one big step forward last Saturday with the launch of the 700-kilowatt Central Mall Biñan rooftop solar system, Southeast Asia’s largest own-use power project so far. The project is pioneering in many ways. It is the first solar installation financed by a local bank, Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), the first offered at a rate competitive with fossil fuel and the first solar-powered shopping mall in the country.

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Furthermore, Solar Philippines has also bagged deals to construct solar systems in other shopping malls, including SM North Edsa, Robinsons Palawan and CityMall Roxas. Leviste’s company expects to complete at least seven more solar projects for shopping malls by end-2014. “I come from a family of environmentalists but for me, this is more about addressing one of the country’s greatest economic challenges—the high cost of electricity,” said Leviste, a son of Sen. Loren Legarda, a known advocate of climate change awareness. “I also believe that only by making a solution commercially viable can it reach meaningful scale in mitigating climate change. Solar is a technology that’s long been tried and tested, but which has not reached wide adoption because no company had packaged this in a way marketable to consumers—zero up-front, as an operating and not a capital expense,” Levite said in reply to an Inquirer query. Below Meralco rates Leviste’s Solar Philippines financed, designed and constructed the entire system at no up-front cost to Central Mall Biñan. Under a power purchase agreement, solar electricity is supplied directly to the mall at below rates charged by Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), which guarantees savings from Day One—a first for renewable energy in the country. Spanning over 7,000 square meters, Central Mall Biñan’s rooftop solar-power system is made up of 2,514 solar panels and equipment from premium German brands. It can cover 30 percent of the mall’s energy needs, in turn reducing the electricity bill by millions of pesos a year. The roof-deck system can produce enough energy to power 1,000 homes and its expected operation in more than three decades will offset over 20,000 tons (18,143.7 metric tons) of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the planting of 100,000 trees. Cost-competitive “The days of having to choose between business and the environment are over,” Leviste said. “Solar has gained the reputation of being expensive, not because of the technology but because previous applications were too small to benefit economies of scale. By building the country’s largest solar rooftop projects, we have become the first local company to make solar cost-competitive with fossil fuel.” “Solar technology is already tried and tested. The problem has been the business model and this is the first company to get it right,” said Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla, who graced Saturday’s roof-deck inauguration in Biñan City, Laguna province. “I commend Solar Philippines for bravely pioneering this zero up-front scheme, which is an obvious choice for customers.”

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By next summer, the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to cap air-conditioning temperature in shopping malls to 25 degrees Celsius to conserve peak power. However, Petilla noted that “solar-powered malls would be exempt from this policy.” Power supply shortfall Warning of a supply shortfall of 500 megawatts in 2015, the DOE has increased its solar installation target from 50 MW to 500 MW, noting that a solar plant’s fast construction time makes it a natural solution to the looming power crisis. This is a plan that doesn’t sit well with some economists, who fear that Filipino electricity consumers will be burdened with additional power charges under the feed-in-tariff subsidy. For his part, Leviste believes that everyone can be part of the solution. “All commercial and industrial building owners can help curb the power shortage by converting their rooftops into solar power plants.” Road to entrepreneurship It all started a year and a half ago, when Leviste read about how a US company called SolarCity pioneered the model of fully financing solar rooftop installations at zero up-front cost, supplying electricity at below utility rates. “Despite the Philippines having the highest electricity rates in Asia and the decreasing cost of solar panels, no company had been able to replicate that model in the Philippines. So I dropped everything to pursue the opportunity. Once I started, I realized other things that made this the perfect niche for a start-up: huge potential, a low barrier to entry and entirely untapped because the model was very different from what traditional power companies were used to,” said Leviste. Yale study on hold Leviste was about to finish his senior year at Yale University, where he was majoring in political science with the hope of becoming a lawyer, when he heeded the call of entrepreneurship. “I tried to juggle this and my studies for a semester but then realized the importance of focus. So school is now on indefinite hold,” he said. The young businessman has since then assembled a 35-person team with over 100 years of combined experience in the solar energy, construction and power industries.

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Solar Philippines is now completing over 50 MW of solar power projects by the first quarter of 2015. “In the range of experiences of our solar engineers, I’d like to think we’ve built a monopoly over solar expertise in the Philippines,” he said. In the first few months, Leviste ran Solar Philippines from his bedroom, learning as much as he could from people in the industry here and abroad while sinking his teeth on a pilot project. “Building a company has definitely been more difficult than building a project. It was a series of tiny victories, with lots of embarrassing moments and lots of firsts, but [it] ultimately came together in the end,” he said. “I think that in this generation, the power to make a difference really is in the hands of entrepreneurs, not policymakers, and that the pace of innovation from Silicon Valley will open many opportunities for those who seek it. I grew up expecting to enter politics but realized that in the 21st century, it’s entrepreneurs who are changing the world,” he said. Zero up-front cost model Solar Philippines’ mission is to make solar energy cheaper than coal and affordable for every home and business in the country. “The reason we’ve been able to build the largest projects in the country is that we’re the first and only company to get prices low enough to produce a compelling return on investment; and in a self-reinforcing cycle, those large projects allow us to reach ever lower costs. Moreover, we’re the only local company that both finances and installs solar plants, meaning we pass on the savings of full-integration to the end-user,” Leviste said. He noted that Solar Philippines was a long-term oriented company that believed in building partnerships with key customers and, as a result, would happily accept slim margins for large volume. Leviste does not see solar power in competition with any other energy source because of its potential for distributed generation. “Even if others might be able to reach a lower generation cost, on top of that would be the transmission, distribution, other charges, resulting in an end-user cost nearly twice as high. This is in comparison to solar, which can bypass that entire value-chain by generating power on-site. You can’t build a coal, gas or hydro plant, or even a windmill on the roof of any mall. But you can mount solar panels!” he said. Break-even point For enterprises using solar power to augment electricity needs, the estimated break-even point depends on the franchise area. Meralco has a high electricity cost and a “demand-based”

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component. Thus, the bill for commercial and industrial customers is based on their highest kilowatt-demand at any point in the month. “Given that most customers still have peak load in the late afternoon or evening, the distribution and transmission portion of your bill—nearly 20 percent—remains intact. But, bottom line, you should expect six- to seven-year payback, or a 15-percent annual return, for a system that’s warrantied for 25 years. So the numbers look great! The challenge remains in surmounting the high initial capital investment and this is why we’ve introduced zero up-front financing to the local market,” he said. Huge market Edgar Sia II, cofounder and chair of DoubleDragon Properties Corp., which plans to build a large chain of community malls across the country under the “CityMall” brand, has affirmed the use of solar power as part of his group’s road map. “We are working with a few solar power groups because all the upcoming 100 CityMalls around the country [by 2020] will have both solar power and rainwater collection systems as part of our long-term planning and outlook,” Sia said in a text message. “Solar power makes sense for mall developments because malls have underutilized big-roof footprint and also because malls consume daytime power simultaneously with the sunshine.” CityMall in Roxas City will have 650 KW of solar power generation capacity, covering about half its requirements. The SM North Edsa roof-deck project is estimated to generate 1.5 MW, covering less than 10 percent of its requirements, while Robinsons Palawan is estimated to generate 1.2 MW. More SM malls are expected to resort to solar power. The SM group, led by the family of tycoon Henry Sy, is not a stranger to solar power generation. In mid-2013, SM City Xiamen launched a 1.1-MW rooftop solar power project, the first of its kind in Xiamen, involving the installation of 3,740 solar panels. JoAnn Eala, BPI vice president and head of sustainable energy finance and specialized lending, shares optimism on solar power projects, especially among commercial and industrial users. “More and more mall and large-rooftop owners realize that they need not fall victim to the power crisis and impact of climate change that have been disrupting business operations. In six to eight months, solar rooftops can provide or augment the power they need. Funding is not a problem, as banks, like BPI, have financing programs that also provide free technical advice.” For Leviste, the potential for solar power is as big as the entire Philippine electricity market. “There’s more than enough rooftop space to meet the entire country’s energy requirements

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and it makes financial sense to go solar in nearly every electricity franchise in the country,” he said. Consumer education “Provided that the numbers now work, the remaining bottlenecks are the willingness of banks and consumer education. No doubt this is a long process that will take several decades to transition to renewable energy and distributed generation, but our company is here for the long haul,” he added. Given the market’s potential, Leviste said it was not a question of gaining market share but of coping with demand. Apart from Central Mall Biñan, SM North Edsa, Robinsons Palawan and CityMall Roxas, his company is in talks with a number of other large industrial and commercial chains. Residential customers In the long run, Leviste sees solar power becoming affordable, even to ordinary households. “Electricity rates are 50-percent higher for residential than commercial consumers and while there’s a high initial investment, you’ll be generating a return on investment of over 20 percent a year, he said. “The challenge remains in achieving economies of scale and the advantage of our doing the largest projects in the country is that we can pass our cost-savings from economies of scale onto residential consumers,” he added. Vision His vision is for Solar Philippines to become the first distributed generation utility in Asia by making solar energy accessible and affordable to every home and business. His is the same vision as that of SolarCity, founded by Elon Musk—also the founder of Tesla Motors, the world’s first successful electric car company— who believes in a future where every building will be powered by solar energy on its rooftop, replacing the electricity grid we know today. “It’s an exciting vision and something I see happening in my lifetime. To put things in perspective, in the early ’90s, cell phones displaced fixed-line telephones a lot faster than people had expected,” Leviste said. “One thing for sure is that by the number of massive projects completed by next summer, consumers will never look at solar the same way again.”

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FINALIST Yolanda-Stricken School Reopens with New Disaster-Resilient Buildings Epi Fabonan III The Philippine Star June 15, 2015

Intel Philippines and Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) constructed four disaster-resilient buildings at the Sto. Nino Elementary School in Yolanda-stricken Tanauan, Leyte. MANILA, Philippines - When Typhoon Yolanda struck Eastern Visayas in 2013, Tanauan, Leyte was one of the many towns that bore the brunt of its devastating force. The typhoon made its second landfall on the southern portion of the town and created five to six feet storm surges that inundated much of the municipality. Among the structures inundated and damaged by the storm was Sto. Niño Elementary School. It used to be an average provincial school, principal Marlon Tangpuz recalls. They didn’t have enough chairs, textbooks, or even functioning toilets. But they managed to lead its almost 600 students to high school with their dedication and passion for teaching.

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“When the wall of water from the storm arrived, my family and I clung to the beams of my office. We survived, but many of our neighbors didn’t. Worse, I saw that my school was totally wiped out—all of its 20 classrooms destroyed. I almost lost my wits thinking of how we will rebuild our school. I didn’t know who to turn to for help,” Tangpuz says. In the months after Typhoon Yolanda, various aid agencies provided the school with temporary tents for use as classrooms. It was better than nothing, and so even though the scorching heat made the pupils uncomfortable and inattentive, Tangpuz and his teachers continued in their duty to teach to educate the next generation. Still, the school needed new classrooms so it can continuously serve the community and bridge the gap in education in this far-flung municipality. Homepage ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Luckily, technology company Intel came to Tanauan together with the Department of Education (DepEd) and Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) looking for beneficiaries of the Adopt-a-School program, one of the successful endeavors in public-private partnership in the country. Out of the five schools in Tanauan shortlisted for the project, Sto. Niño Elementary School was selected. “When we first came to Sto. Niño Elementary School, I immediately felt that this was the place we should rebuild. Of the schools we visited in Tanauan, this was the one that was completely destroyed and lost all of its learning materials to storm surge. The children were in humid, overcrowded makeshift tents,” Intel Philippines country manager Calum Chisholm says. Chisholm was in Tanauan together with PBSP executive director Rafael Lopa to inaugurate and turn over Sto. Niño Elementary School’s four new school buildings. According to Chisholm, the four buildings have 10 classrooms in total and were designed to be disaster-resilient and technologically capable. “As you can see from the ruins of the old school building, it was built parallel to the shoreline which made it totally vulnerable to storm surges. When we were designing these buildings, our consideration was to make them withstand natural disasters in the future so it can be used as a temporary evacuation center for the community,” Chisholm explains. To make them disaster-resilient, the one-storey buildings were constructed 40 meters away from the coastline at a height of one meter from the ground. Their orientation is also perpendicular to the shore, just a boat in the sand, so that it can pierce through storm surges instead of being pushed. Each building has a roof deck accessible via a main staircase in the middle, where students and villagers can evacuate to avoid sudden flooding. The buildings can also withstand 250-kph winds—more than the 200 kph industry standard—as well as fires for up to three hours, instead of the normal one hour.

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But Intel, being an IT company, didn’t just want to construct a physical building; it wanted to create an entire educational experience. “This isn’t just a disaster-resilient building; it is also technologically equipped for education. We deployed ruggedized classroom PCs and provided IT training for the teachers. These are ruggedized so that the pupils and teachers wouldn’t be hesitant to use out of fear that they might break them,” Chisholm states, adding that the school is also equipped with solar panels donated by Australian firm Optimus Energy to augment the school’s electricity needs especially in times of disaster. “This endeavor doesn’t end with the school building. Just as we have done with similar endeavors in other parts of the Philippines, we will gauge the impact of this project by monitoring the performance of students after they started using our devices. To us, it’s important that every project we do benefits the community in a sustainable way,” Chisholm declares. During the turnover ceremony, principal Tangpuz expressed his enthusiasm and gratitude for the new school buildings they received. “From here starts Sto. Niño Elementary School’s rise through the Intel way. We will do our best to make our school one of the centers of excellence through Intel’s help. There is no other reason for us not to excel because of their support,” Tangpuz says. And so as Sto. Niño Elementary School faces another school year, its students and teachers wouldn’t have to worry much about shortages in classrooms or learning materials. They would no longer think of their school as average and mediocre. For what used to be a place that bore the brunt of nature’s furor has now found new favor and fervor.