Chloe B Babauta

cbabauta@guampdn.com

After living for 10 years without power, Julia Gumataotao, 61, turned on the lights for the first time after her electricity was hooked up, two days before Thanksgiving.

“When they set up the power, my heart just fell on the ground,” she said.

Gumataotao had been living in a two-bedroom house with her daughter, Angela Indalecio, son-in-law Joe Indalecio and two granddaughters, with no working electricity. The family had to spend $40 daily on gas for a generator, which they only used from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. to charge their phones and keep fans on while they slept.

Gumataotao has lived with a heart condition and was declared disabled after her heart surgery. Her daughter moved her family to the Agat home, where Gumataotao wanted to live, to take care of her. Angela Indalecio is a bone cancer survivor on disability, so she stays at home with her mother.

Angela Indalecio said her mother is supposed to stay in air conditioning because of Gumataotao’s heart problems; the heat makes it hard for her to breathe.

Gumataotao has lived on a property leased to her through the Chamorro Land Trust Commission since 2006. She and her late husband, Benny Camacho, lived in a wood-and-tin shack on the land and slowly built the semi-concrete home that stands there today.

In 2012, the couple took the necessary steps to get electricity connected in their home by filling out applications, paying fees and going so far as to visit the engineering department at the Guam Power Authority to figure out how to get the power connected.

The authority told Gumataotao they needed four power poles and cables to connect power to her house, which would cost $20,000, she said.

Four years later, after her husband’s passing, Gumataotao had given up on her dream of having power at her house.

“I understand if it’s a private property, but why can’t the government work together as a group because this is a government land, actually,” she said. “They were distributed to all the locals and … it really makes me feel bad that every turn that I go to, they can’t even work together.”

“There was always a road block,” Indalecio said.

But Angela Indalecio wasn’t done fighting for her mother. She brought the issue to the Legislature.

Legislation

Sen. Tom Ada worked with her family to get the Chamorro Land Trust Commission to allocate $30,000 to the Guam Power Authority to install power poles to their Santa Ana lot. The funds were taken from the Chamorro Land Trust Survey and Infrastructure Fund.

Ada sponsored Bill 320-33 to use part of those funds for the installation of infrastructure in Gumataotao’s lot. The bill passed in June.

Director of the Department of Land Management Mike Borja spoke in opposition to Bill 320-33 at a public hearing before the measure was passed.

“I have a lot of other people just as needy and (who need) something done to their property as well,” he said.

Borja said Gumataotao, and others like her, chose to lease their lots knowing there wasn’t proper infrastructure for water and power facilities. The commission is working to get more money, which the Legislature has to approve, to survey more lots before leasing them out, Borja said. His main concern is to help as many people as possible with the funds that are available.

Borja opposed the bill because it gave money to help one specific family, when there are many others out there who are experiencing the same thing.

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“I could have surveyed 30 to 40 other lots with that kind of money,” he said. “It only served one family.”

Gumataotao’s family came to the Land Trust asking for assistance, but the commission didn’t have the ability to spend the money without the Legislature’s permission, so they went to ask for senators’ help, Borja said.

“The unfortunate thing is that the Legislature doesn’t want to look at the group as a whole,” he said.

Borja said the sooner he can survey more lots of land, the sooner he can provide real leases to people. He said it’s much more costly to survey a tiny lot on a large tract of land, compared to completely surveying the entire larger lot. It costs about $1,000 to survey an individual lot, but if the Land Trust was able to use the $30,000, they could have surveyed about 50 lots, Borja said.

“I would rather see the greatest good served for the greatest number,” he said. “That’s what it’s about, it has to be when you have limited resources.”

Help with wiring

Joe Indalecio’s cousin, Manny Borja, and his team of evangelist missionaries, Hidden Treasures International, stayed on the family’s property when they first arrived on Guam in August. The group helped the family with the final step in hooking up the power — getting the necessary wiring.

Borja and missionary James Camel went to The Home Depot to ask for a discount on wire, but merchandising manager Anthony Quichocho went a step further and donated at least $2,000 worth of electrical wire to the family, Camel said.

The family said the biggest change in their lives since the electricity was connected is the level of convenience they now have.

Angela Indalecio said they had to drive into town to buy a bag of ice and meat every time they wanted to prepare food, which was costly.

“It’s not so bad for us, it’s for the children,” Gumataotao said.

Angela Indalecio said she plans on buying her mother an electric stove for Christmas.