Electrical line bundles trimmed

CIMG0211, originally uploaded by lotusduck.

This picture doesn't get across the enormity of the situation. This is from a trip to the Philippines. Telephone poles had huge bundles with lots of cut lines hanging from them.
I took this picture when a bunch of people with ladders were trimming the disconnected lines, I suppose they were working for the government there? But they were just letting the cut lines fall into traffic.
And how were these workers involved with the creation of these tangled bundles of wires in the first place?