A MISSION LIKE NO OTHER

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

In my forty years’ professional career as a development worker, being involved either as consultant or technical officer for thirty-two UN-funded projects most of which planned and implemented in Bohol, I have never felt more challenged than this time with this current advocacy to address a problem which impacts severely on family welfare and local development and yet it is still to merit respectable mileage in terms of public interest and support.  Indeed, in many ways, this advocacy to help address the drug menace in our midst is a mission like no other I have done in the past.

After writing nine out of twenty columns the past few months on this prevalent drug abuse problem, I have not received any response from readers at all except for the joke that the picture which accompanies the column must have been taken some ten or fifteen years ago.

Which is not far from the truth actually. My wife was the one who selected it and she might not want readers to know I am twenty years older than her!

As I indicated in previous columns, the responses so far to the drug abuse problem are not adequate nor comprehensive enough to generate confidence that all aspects have been considered. The buy-busts operations and the shooting of drug personalities in full-view of the public with pictures of bodies riddled with bullets may succeed as good psywar operations to scare off drug pushers and their handlers, but the trade-off is the widespread negative perception about the image of the province and its regard for the rule of law.

I am puzzled why the Government, the Church, the business sector and civil society organizations are quite hesitant and timid to complement police operations with humanitarian and Christian caring for the victims of drug abuse and their suffering families. There is no moral outrage at all about violation of human rights and the harm done to families and the community as a whole by the proliferation of the illegal drug trade.  

It looks like the prevailing bias is to shoot down pushers and to get the drug lords who are their financiers. The businessmen have said it’s about time that the police get the big fish, not the small fries. The police authorities have announced it will heed the advice. The Government says no drug lords will be spared. Well, let’s fast-track things so people will not say it’s just a role play before the narco-state becomes a reality in this country.

On the matter of having a drug rehabilitation center cum mental facility, nobody has made any announcement about plans and budgetary estimates to implement their plans. The Diocese of Tagbilaran  says drop-in and drug rehabilitation centers are not within their priority. The Provincial Government has a task force planning reportedly for these facilities. We have yet to hear what exactly they plan to do.

Likewise we have yet to hear from the business, women and youth sectors and the NGOs what they are thinking about faced with the fact that more than 50% of crimes committed in the province are drug-related. Perhaps they are all waiting for their cue from the Government. This attitude is understandable since it’s a highly sensitive issue and, given the number of casualties in the drug war, these people may be afraid they may end up being shot themselves. Wow, what a province, what a country!

Here is where we need the media to perform its investigative role and unearth the reality behind the “terrorism of gossip,” as Pope Francis so graphically put it. In the absence of a database on the actual situation of drug addiction in Bohol, we urge the media to venture out to do some interviewing of sources in Tagbilaran City and the municipalities and describe what is really going on as far as drug distribution and use is concerned. This is not a question of skills, but more of guts. Dagohoy and his courage must not be a casualty in our inability to act at this time of our history.  

Our friends from media must have heard it that you can walk in any town in Bohol, talk to local officials or some residents, including hotel staff and tricycle drivers, and they will tell you the  exact locations and persons where to buy shabu. Perhaps the media will take the initiative to do some leg work and in the finest tradition of Philippine journalism, produce a detailed and no non-sense report on the extent of drug addiction in the province. Or they can interview some families and depict what they have to endure in the absence of a drug rehabilitation facility in the province.

For our part at Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF), we will persevere in our efforts to get support for our advocacy to help young drug abuse victims from indigent families to get quality treatment services. We believe this will help prevent more serious social problems to occur in the future. This is probably our last hurrah, indeed a mission like no other, in a long journey to serve our people.

We will also continue to engage young people, particularly the out-of-school youth, to acquire skills that will enable them to engage in livelihood activities and thus prevent them from being enticed to try illegal drugs to provide a convenient escape from the harsh reality that they are a burden to their family and the community.

BLDF will soon launch an advocacy and fund campaign to support its new initiative, the Bohol Youth Livelihood and Drug Rehabilitation Project, to complement what we have been proposing for the last six months or so - the establishment of a drug rehabilitation center cum mental health institution, in the province.

This project is part of current efforts to help address a serious social problem which affects hundreds of households in Bohol, most of whom cannot afford to send affected family members to similar institutions in Cebu, Davao, Manila and Tagaytay. The draft rationale and objectives for these fund raising initiative are as follows:

-Recent events tend to show that the province has become a major transshipment point, if not primary destination, for illegal drugs and that drug pushers and their victims have increased quite significantly over the last few years.

-Drug-related killings and other heinous crimes, such as rape (in one case, a mother was raped by her own son who is a drug addict); physical assault, theft and robbery have become common in the province as reported in local papers.  More than a dozen drug pushers have been shot dead or wounded in broad daylight, in busy streets of Tagbilaran City and in the towns, in a province which used to have a reputation as being crime-free and among the country’s most peaceful places.

-More than 50% of crimes committed in the province are reportedly drug-related. Alcoholism is getting to be rampant particularly among the youth.  Mental health cases have also been noted to be on the rise. 

-The province with a population of more than 1.2 million has no drug rehabilitation center nor a mental health facility to cope with these behavior-related problems. Family members affected with substance abuse and other behavioral addictions, mental illness, adjustment disorders and other psychological problems have to be brought to Cebu, Davao, Manila and Tagaytay City in Cavite province for their treatment.

-Indigent families in the province have difficulty seeking treatment for their affected members on account of the high costs involved. If untreated, this increasing number of individuals with various forms of addiction will lead to more crimes in the future.

-An urgent need exists to provide livelihood opportunities to households affected by the problems related to drug abuse and mental health to further ensure family support during treatment and post-recovery. Engagement of clients in livelihood activities can also be part of treatment and rehabilitation to further ensure reintegration into normal community and family life.

-Family and community involvement is needed for the effective prevention, pre-treatment, treatment and after-care phases of drug demand reduction/elimination to ensure early detection, diagnosis, appropriate intervention, and full family and community reintegration after treatment and rehabilitation.

-Psychology students in Bohol, who can play a vital role in drug rehabilitation programs, have no access to clinical training and supervision in the province, and so they have to spend more money to go to institutions outside Bohol for their practicum and clinical internship training as required under their curriculum.

The fund drive seeks to achieve the following objectives:

-To provide skills among the youth, particularly the out-of-school youth, to enable them to get employed, undertake livelihood activities, or to continue their schooling through the Alternative Learning System (ALS) or any of TESDA-accredited training institutions;

-To establish demonstration sites or projects for scaling up Informal Employment and Sustainable Livelihood among families with out-of-school youth and/or drug abuse victims;

-To  provide access to treatment services to drug abuse victims from indigent families and thus prevent social problems arising from drug abuse;

-To implement activities related to creating public awareness about drug abuse, the need for counselling and other pre-treatment services in partnership with the Government, NGOs, academic institutions and other CSOs and target communities; and

-To monitor and evaluate the progress made by former drug abuse clients to ensure post-treatment are provided for their full recovery and integration with their families and local communities. Further details will be announced in our website, www.bohollocaldev.org .For comments or feedbacks: email us at npestelos@gmail.com / info@bohollocaldev.org 

Let’s support this initiative and do our part in preventing the deterioration of our way of life in this our beloved province. #Boholivelihooddrugrehab

NMP/27 May 2015/3.14 p.m.

BLDF TO LAUNCH FUND CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT LIVELIHOOD AND DRUG REHABILITATION AMONG THE YOUTH IN BOHOL

  NOTES ON A NEW BLDF INITIATIVE

BLDF has released the draft Project Brief for its Advocacy and Fund Campaign to support livelihood and drug rehabilitation among the youth in Bohol.

The draft will be discussed with potential partners in this new initiative. This is actually the 7^th draft proposal submitted by BLDF to various sectors in efforts to solicit support for its advocacy that a drug rehabilitation center cum mental health facility be established in Bohol.

Comments or feedbacks may be sent to: npestelos@gmail.com / info@bohollocaldev.org 

PROJECT BRIEF

ADVOCACY AND FUND CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT BOHOL YOUTH LIVELIHOOD AND DRUG REHABILITATION PROJECT  (BYLDRP)

1.0       Background/Rationale

In recent months, newspaper headlines in Bohol tend to show that the province has become a major transshipment point, if not primary destination, for illegal drugs and that drug pushers and their victims have increased quite significantly over the last few years.

Drug-related killings and other heinous crimes, such as rape (in one case, a mother was raped by her own son who is a drug addict); physical assault, theft and robbery have become common reading fare in local papers.  More than a dozen drug pushers have been shot dead or wounded in broad daylight, in busy streets of Tagbilaran City and in the towns, in a province which used to have a reputation as being crime-free and among the country’s most peaceful places.

More than 50% of crimes committed in the province are reportedly drug-related. Alcoholism is getting to be rampant particularly among the youth.  Mental health cases have also been noted to be on the rise. 

The province with a population of more than 1.2 million has no drug rehabilitation center or a mental health facility to cope with these behavior-related problems. Family members affected with substance abuse and other addictions, mental illness, adjustment disorders and other psychological problems have to be brought to Cebu, Davao, Manila and Tagaytay City in Cavite province for their treatment.

 Indigent families in the province have difficulty seeking treatment for their affected members on account of the high costs involved. If untreated, this increasing number of individuals with various forms of addiction will lead to more crimes in the future.

Psychology students in Bohol have no access to clinical training and supervision in the province, and so they have to spend more money to go to institutions outside Bohol for their practicum and clinical internship training as required under their curriculum. This internship program is of vital importance now with the international alignment and standardization of psychology education and practice, following ASEAN integration in 2015, the open skies policy, and the free mobility of professionals and learners in the region in the years to come.

There is also the need to provide livelihood opportunities to households affected by the problems related to drug abuse and mental health to further ensure project sustainability. Engagement of clients in livelihood activities can also be part of treatment and rehabilitation to further ensure reintegration into normal community and family life after the rehabilitation phase.

Moreover, it has been recognized that without community involvement, without local communities and families accepting their role in the prevention, pre-treatment, treatment and after-care phases of drug demand reduction/elimination, it will be difficult to ensure early detection, diagnosis, appropriate intervention, and full family and community reintegration after treatment and rehabilitation.

Taking all these into account, multi-sectoral efforts are thus needed to cope with social problems caused by increasing cases of drug abuse and the rise in the number of people who need psychological intervention and other psycho-social services.

These will necessarily include:

• a comprehensive public awareness campaign aimed at enlisting people and institutions at the grassroots level in the fight against drug abuse; and

• a rehabilitation center which will combine community-based approaches with cost-effective clinical methods and a humanitarian and eclectic strategy to deal with hundreds of drug users who now inhabit practically all the barangays in the province whose presence threatens social stability and the attainment of peace and progress and represents a sheer waste in human resources.

• a mental health facility as part of the recovery center.

Taking the foregoing into account, an advocacy and fund campaign is needed for this Youth Livelihood and Drug Rehabilitation Project.

2.0       Overall Goal and Objectives

The overall goal is to raise Php 50 million in two years to meet the following objectives:

2.1       To provide out-of-school youth with skills to enable them to get employed, undertake livelihood activities, or to continue their schooling through the Alternative Learning System (ALS) or any of TESDA-accredited training institutions;

2.2       To establish demonstration sites or projects for scaling up Informal Employment and Sustainable Livelihood among families with out-of-school youth and/or drug abuse victims;

2.2       To  provide access to treatment services to drug abuse victims from indigent families and thus prevent social problems arising from drug abuse;

2.3       To implement activities related to creating public awareness about drug abuse, the need for counselling and other pre-treatment services in partnership with the Government, NGOs, academic institutions and other CSOs and target communities; and

2.4       To monitor and evaluate the progress made by former drug abuse clients to ensure post-treatment are provided for their full recovery and integration with their families and local communities.

3.0       Organization and Management

3.1       Convenor: Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF)

See Annex 1: Notes on BLDF.

BLDF will facilitate the organization of the following:

3.1.1    Advocacy and Fund Raising Committee

Role: to formulate guidelines and oversee the implementation of the various fund raising activities.

To be composed of : a Chairperson and five members representing the various sectors – business; academic institutions; Government; women and youth sectors; civic groups.

3.1.2    Secretariat

Role: to coordinate activities and provide technical and administrative support to the implementation of the Advocacy and Fund Raising Plan.

To be composed of: a Coordinator; volunteers/fund campaign secretaries; office secretary/bookkeeper; researcher/IT specialist; driver.

ANNEX 1

NOTES ON BOHOL LOCAL DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (INC.)

Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF) and its predecessor organization, the UNICEF-assisted Ilaw International Center (IIC), have a combined experience of more than thirty years in efforts to address poverty in Bohol.

Over the years, BLDF has conceptualized, field-tested and replicated methodologies, systems and tools to enhance partnership with local communities and various types of institutions and organizations in poverty reduction projects. Some of these innovative processes and pro-poor planning tools (Poverty Database and Monitoring System; Ilaw ng Buhay or Light of Life philosophy and approach to development adopted globally by UNICEF in the 1980s; integrated area-based methodology) have been replicated in diverse cultural and socio-economic context both in the Philippines and abroad.

In the wake of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake which hit Bohol on 15 October 2013, BLDF implemented a community-based shelter assistance project to enable families to build transitional core houses and move their vulnerable members (the elderly, children and women, the disabled and sick) from the tents and makeshift structures to relatively safer and more secure dwellings.

With funds raised from concerned individuals and private institutions, BLDF was able to help build 150 core houses in several remote villages of Calape, Antequera, Maribojoc and Baclayon. With the announcement in August, 2014 that the Government and Habitat for Humanity have available funding to build 6,000 permanent homes for the homeless, BLDF shifted its program focus to the promotion of informal employment and sustainable livelihood among the youth, particularly those who are out of school or those in Alternative Learning Systems (ALS).

In less than a year of implementing projects for the out-of-school youth, BLDF has become convinced that a comprehensive approach is needed to address the social problems posed by the increasing use of illegal drugs particularly among the youth.  This drug abuse problem, along with alcoholism and mental illnesses, if unchecked, will negate in the process, the gains made over several decades in development efforts by the Government, its partners and the international donors. 

BLDF has sought to be part of the evolving plans and programs to address the social problems posed by the growing drug menace in Bohol. Otherwise, the achievements in combatting poverty in the province will be for naught. Hence it initiated dialogues with key sectors in formulating a response to this major concern.  -NMP/26 May 2015

NEED FOR ACTION ON THE DRUG ADDICTION PROBLEM IN BOHOL

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

With two colleagues from our NGO, Dr. Pomie Buot, vice president, and Mollie Pasco, accountant, we just completed the study visits to six drug rehabilitation centers in the provinces of Cebu, Davao and Misamis Occidental. We noted that although these facilities have a significant number of clients from Bohol, their fees for “board and lodging,” medication expenses and consultations, as well as the costs incurred by family members during regular visits and the mandatory family orientation and training, will be beyond the reach of many families struggling with drug addiction among their members here in our province.

These field visits validate the need to establish at least one drug rehabilitation cum mental health facility in our province to ease the burden of hundreds of families who are considered poor with one or more of their members in various stages of drug and/or alcohol addiction.  Depending on the stage of brain damage due to repeated drug abuse, these affected family members may now be showing symptoms of drug-induced psychosis for which we have no treatment facility in this province of 1.2 million people. 

These drug abuse victims are now in their hundreds and if they go untreated, these will result in more crimes, such as rape, murder, robberies. There will be more unproductive members of society as well as dysfunctional families which will erase whatever gains we have made in the past in development, spiritual uplift and the pursuit of values fostered by our ancestors in the proud history of the Boholanos.

We need to do something concrete while police authorities intensify their operations against those who perpetuate the lucrative illegal drug trade in our province. Let us do something to open access to drug abuse treatment services to as many people as possible as the police intensifies efforts to engage pushers and their handlers in chase-and-shoot pursuits beyond cinematic proportions, which threaten to destroy in the process our reputation as a province with high social capital and abundant heroic traditions in defense of family and race.

Our recent study visits to nearby drug rehab centers show however that If a family with drug abuse problems among its members will decide to seek treatment from  the centers visited, the prospect of their son or daughter getting  treated may not be that bright.

Here are the charges and the corresponding period of stay in each of the centers:

New Day Recovery Center, Davao City (PHP 48,000 per month; in patient, 8 months, and out-patient, 2 months);

Metro Psyche or Roads and Bridges for Recovery, Mandaue City (PHP 35,000 per month; additional Php 60,000 for medicines and follow-up;  12 months treatment period);

 It Works! Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, Ozamiz City (PHP 18,000 per month; treatment period: 3 to 6 months based on progress);

Misamis Occidental Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Center (MODTRC), Oroquieta City, Misamis Occidental (PHP 4,000 per month for out-patient; PHP 8,000 per month for in-patient; treatment period: 6 months; in case of relapse, client repeats the same process);

Lifeline Services, Tangub City, Misamis Occidental (PHP 15,000 per month; treatment period: 6 months);

Family and Recovery Management (FARM), Bayong, Cadulawan, Minglanilla, Cebu  (Fee flexible depending on the client’s ability to pay; owner provides for maintenance; treatment period: 6 months; Note: less than two years of operations and may not be ready to accept more clients).

If we factor in the costs of transport, food, accommodation that family members will incur to visit their sons or daughters in these rehabilitation centers, the total costs may reach Php 500,000 to Php 800,000 depending on the frequency of visits and the distance from Bohol.  

With the proliferation of illicit drugs, principally shabu, in the province which has come to the attention of many people due to the spate of drug-related killings in recent months, it is safe to assume that hundreds of families are affected by the drug abuse problem in our midst. In the absence of a database on the actual number of people or percentage of specific population groups with drug addiction problem, we can only surmise that the problem is widespread on account of the drug buy-bust cases and arrests being done by the police and documented by the news clippings we have compiled during the past five months.

The news clippings show how the distribution and use of illegal drugs has penetrated all layers of society and distorted in the process our sense of values as a people.

Consider these:

-Raids on suspected sources of drugs resulted not only in the confiscation of shabu and other drugs, but also “yielded loose guns, including high powered , and even live grenades.”

-Seventy-one barangays have been considered with serious drug problem which means they have “at least one drug laboratory, den or resort or a shabu tyangge,” according to the police.

-Pension houses are suspected as distribution points for illegal drugs.

-Stolen motorbikes were found in a hideout of suspected drug pushers.

-A former vice mayor and a former vice governor were among those arrested in police operations against illegal drug trade and use.

-Former barangay captain nabbed for drugs.

-Drug suspect arrested for the murder of a municipal councilor.

-Illegal drugs are reportedly sold in school campuses, particularly during night-time.

-A 63-year old woman was arrested for being drug courier.

-Drug suspect fired at arresting policemen.

-Illegal drugs cited as reason for series of carnapping in the city.

-Minor arrested for illegal drugs and possession of M16 bullets.

-More women sell shabu.

-Drug addict hangs self in a tree.

-A retired cop nabbed in drug raid.

-Rape-slay filed against estranged boyfriend, who is a drug abuser.

-Drug raids continue during Holy Week.

-Drug-linked shooting mars barangay fiesta.

-Illegal trade drugs sold on-line.

-Woman nabbed while buying illegal drugs.

-Tricycle passenger arrested for wanting to pay driver with shabu.

-Police blamed illegal drugs for alarming rise of rape cases in the province.

-203 drug cases filed in court in recent months.

-Ex-convict arrested for having shabu .

-Businessmen dare police to arrest drug lords, not only small fries.

-Alleged lady drug pusher arrested and reported to be contacting top government officials to get protection.

These news items validate the observation that illegal drug distribution and use is rampant in the province. If the unverified report is true  that 50% of crimes reported in the province are drug-related, then we need no elaborate survey to show that illegal drug use should be  a priority social concern in this our beloved and beleaguered  province.

In his State of the Province Address (SOPA), Gov. Edgar Chatto said that 1,640.602 grams worth PHP 19,359,103.60 were confiscated in 2014. This was much, much bigger than the PHP 164.45 grams worth PHP 1,940,510 seized in 2013.

This indicates not only police efficiency in the conduct of drug raids but also the big volume of illegal drug trade in the province. In response to the situation, Gov. Chatto said in his SOPA:

“Lives have been offered at the altar of peace and order in our no-nonsense campaign against drug abuse. We must win this war together. Let us be vanguards of our city, municipalities, barangays and even puroks. Let us be guardians in our homes. We must win this war together.”

Aside from the war against drug lords and pushers being waged by the Government and the police, there is the other area of concern which all sectors of Boholano society should unite for  – what to do with hundreds of drug abuse victims whose families have nobody to turn to in the province to listen to their plea for systematic counselling, referral and treatment services within their means or their sponsors to provide.

As we have repeatedly in this column, there is an urgent need to establish a drug rehabilitation center cum mental health facility in the province. If this cannot be fast-tracked on account of budgetary constraint, we suggest that at least a network of Outreach and Drop-In Centers (ODICs) be established so that there is a contact point between a service facility and the families affected by drug abuse and pave the way for their drug-related problems to be systematically addressed.

This will significantly reduce drug demand and initiate a more systematic approach to open access to pre-treatment and treatment services for hundreds of people, mostly the young, who have become drug abusers in recent years on account of factors, some of which are not within their capacity to manage or control.

The following may be undertaken in an ODIC, as cited in a report by the Colombo Plan Drug Advisory Program (CPDAP): outreach visits; early intervention strategies such as pre-treatment counseling, home-based detoxification; short-term outpatient or home-based treatment; referrals to hospitals or drug treatment centers; organization and conduct of education and training programs by professionals on drug awareness, training of outreach support staff and volunteers, and skills training; and encouraging family members to come to the centers for counseling.

We have estimated that the total cost for such a drop-in center will be around PHP 810,000 to take care of the infrastructure required; staffing; office equipment, utilities and other administrative costs for one year of operations. This is part of a much-reduced proposal costing Php 15 million for building the 30-bed facility for a drug rehab center and a drop-in center in one of the parishes of the Diocese of Tagbilaran. Unfortunately, after submitting a total of six proposals to the Diocese, we were informed that the project could not be included in the reportedly Vatican-funded Bohol Rehabilitation and Rebuilding Program because it is not within their priorities or that they did not have the staff to implement it.

The positive note is that the representatives of the Diocese in our meeting last week had the compromise that any parish wanting to help build the drug rehabilitation center and/or drop-in center may do so as a local initiative. We took it to mean that there would be no approval needed from the hierarchy – and, well, no funding support, too! Tiny as this door of opportunity is we must seize it like cats feasting on the morsels thrown at them by house guests. Let the parishes be inspired by the example of Baclayon which raised PHP 10 million in less than two years to build a comfortable dwelling to house three priests. If this can be done for three servants of the Lord, perhaps we can be inspired to raise funds and build the much-needed drug rehabilitation and drop-in center which will benefit the multitude for decades to come. Will this not be in conformity with the pronouncements and policies of the reformist and activist Pope Francis?

It just occurred to me that the same strategy can be adopted by the LGUs since they have been clustered into supposedly more cost-effective arrangements into BIADs (Bohol Integrated Area Development). Since their constituents are affected one way or the other by the drug addiction problem, they can contribute to build, support and maintain a facility each using initially local budgetary resources? This can be good politics, too, since many of their voters are affected by the worsening drug abuse problem in the province.

Our colleagues from the six drug rehab centers we visited, some of them Boholanos, are willing to provide advice on how we can go about having these important facilities here in Bohol. The story of how Rene Francisco, a former drug addict, was able to build the IT WORKS! Chemical Dependency Treatment Center out of sheer will to help “save lives” starting with simple facilities in a two-story wooden house and assisted by a priest and a nun should inspire us to action to address a social problem which, if left unchecked, will affect future generations of Boholanos.

We repeat here that our NGO, Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF) is making available the use of two pieces of land (1.2 has. And 6,000 sq. m.) for any of these facilities, including their use for a livelihood center. NDRC Davao has visited the two sites and we are now in the process of taking the initial discussions to the actual planning level.

We will open up participation of other individuals and groups we have been dealing with and see how we can take initial steps to build at least one Outreach and Drop-In Center within the year while working to raise funds for a drug rehab facility  in the province through our program thrust on livelihood for out-of-school youth.

Just email us: npestelos@gmail.com or info@bohollocaldev.org . Or visit us at www.bohollocaldev.org for more information on how we can work together to help address this drug menace in our midst. #Boholdrugrehabcenter.

NMP/21May2015/9.33 a.m. 

LESSONS FROM PROJECTS

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

by: NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

I enjoy it immensely when my friends joke I eat projects for breakfast. This is true figuratively, of course.  When I look back over the last forty years after spending some brief time in military detention , which ended a Bohemian cum revolutionary lifestyle, the latter more in form than in substance, there has been a deliberate effort on my part to get involved in projects rather than in activities which cannot be neatly categorized as developmental.

Such effort is definitely a better alternative than going behind prison walls and recycling fantasies about the good life in some remote beaches in the company of friends and other relations, many of whom are experts in prolonged stimulation of the senses. To indulge in such fantasies is quite tiring and counterproductive and must be resisted, some old comrades used to remind us. Shades of the proletarian philosophy which got us into trouble with authorities in the first place!

Now at 73, I feel that I owe it to my children, to my colleagues, friends and other relations to somehow make an accounting of key lessons learned from some of these projects which have taken so much time away from efforts to enjoy a normal family life despite our renouncing the irregular lifestyle of the underground.

And so it came to pass that my first assignment as part of post-detention rehabilitation was to serve as information officer of a high-profile project identified with Mrs. Imelda Marcos, otherwise known as the First Lady, during the Martial Law years. The project was Green Revolution which promoted at that time backyard food production as intervention to child malnutrition.

A fraternity brother who visited me at the office, actually a more friendly version of a detention center, found it significant that I would now work in something green after being with the red underground. He saw it a logical progression to enable me to appreciate projects of a different hue. Something which earned my grin up to this day.

The positive thing about being a high-profile project was that it ensured the involvement of many local government units and government agencies in much-publicized activities such as Green Revolution fairs, contests, free distribution of seeds and seedlings and gardens which sprouted overnight in communities where the First Lady was about to speak or where a Green Revolution caravan would pass.

 In terms of backyards made productive and gardens cultivated, the program under the direction of no less than the First Lady was a huge success. All over the land, there was a massive and quite expensive campaign to get the front yard, backyard or any kind of home yard planted to all sorts of vegetables for family consumption to eliminate child malnutrition or to sell surplus produce.

A huge surplus, yes. Great publicity, too, about eggplants, squash, carrots, cabbages. Vegetables growing through your ears but too much for a family to consume – or to sell. There was the finding that it was cheaper to buy the vegetables in the nearest public market than to produce and sell them Green Revolution style.  

Our Green Revolution teams, with combined membership of 35, composed mostly of retired community development fieldworkers who pioneered the country’s PACD (Presidential Assistant for Community Development) Program in the 1950s under Pres. Ramon Magsaysay, worked with a graduate student of the University of the Philippines Los Banos to identify vegetables under the category of  perennials which could be “planted, forgotten and harvested” rather than follow the list of vegetables planted in rows favored by American Peace Corps Volunteers.

They arrived at a list of much-favored vegetables mandatory now for each team to promote which included the following: sweet potato or camote, malunggay, banana, patani, sitao, seguidillas, kangkong, alugbati, okra  which could be planted along any fence or even under the kitchen sink and would not require any fertilizer or pesticide to grow. The vegetables in the list were easier to promote on account of their low maintenance requirements and the impact to family health and income easier to monitor and establish.

Hence, our Green Revolution staff had a guerilla-type operations compared to the conventional deployment of battalions of extension workers fielded by the Department of Agriculture in those days when the Government was seeking ways to be more visible with its programs in the countryside. Early in the 1970s, I learned the lesson that massive funding, mobilization and a nationwide campaign will not guarantee relevance to the situation of specific households in marginalized communities with low absorptive capacities for large-scale projects.

After living almost like in a house arrest for five years at the Green Revolution Command Center at Nayong Pilipino, I was sent in the early 1980s on UNICEF scholarship to the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development in Comilla  and the Project Planning Center at the University of Bradford in England which refined my understanding on the use of tools for the planning, implementation of rural development projects. While about to enroll for a Master’s degree at the University of Swansea, my boss, Atty. Ramon P. Binamira, instructed me to return to the country and initiate the setting up of the Ilaw International Center (IIC) in Bool, Tagbilaran City. 

When we succeeded to build the center with assistance from the City Government of Tagbilaran through  Mayor Jose Ma. Rocha and the business community led by Ong Guat,  Cia Lim and Alfonso Uy, giving us advice primarily on how to get bargains for construction materials, we developed our core curriculum and service packages which attracted attention from international donors to support key projects from 1983 onwards: World Bank (Central Visayas Regional Project); USAID (Agro Marine Project, Local Resource Management Project; Remote Islands Development Project);  and UNICEF which funded the training activities and provided equipment and vehicles to the Center.

The IIC was able to sustain operations after 1989, when I left for UNDP posting in the Pacific and the Maldives) until 1993, when its external funding ran out. There were many lessons learned during these Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life) years. Aside from the innovations in the conduct of family Ilaw training which made use of emotions to complement technical inputs in nutrition, family planning, food production and environmental management, we learned that reliance on grants is not enough to sustain the projects and implementing organization.

When the IIC group was succeeded by BLDF, composed mostly of the former staff of the old NGO in 2003, it was about to enter the Digital Age which put new challenges in project development work with the use of digital gadgets and tools.

The primary lesson learned from this period, from the  IIC days to present-day BLDF is that it is difficult for an NGO to survive with limited resources ,but  it could still manage to survive  at tremendous social and opportunity costs. In partnership with the Provincial Government through various Administrations and the PPDO, BLDF was able to develop new planning tools and approaches with assistance from EU, CIDA, AusAID and USAID:

a.       The Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life) methodology and approach to community development documented in several studies by academic institutions and international donors recognized globally as an innovative application of basic services strategy by the UNICEF Board;

b.      Training modules and community organizing approaches in unique geographic locations as contrasted to areas defined by political boundaries, in the World Bank funded Central Visayas Regional Development Project;

c.       Child-based concerns as entry points for community organizing in conflict areas, as in those remote mountain areas under the influence and control of armed anti-government elements in Bohol and other provinces considered as the country’s poorest;

d.      Use of local resource base for catalyzing partnership between local government units and target communities in joint planning and collaboration;

e.      Localized human development strategies and programs for remote and isolated atoll countries with focus on livelihood development and environment –friendly technologies  (developed and implemented in 10 South Pacific islands and the Maldives)

f.        Integrated area development approaches for the promotion of MSMEs and gender Equality;

g.       Development of pro-poor planning tool (Poverty Database Monitoring  System) and its eventual integration with ecoBUDGET in local level planning which was developed in Bohol and replicated in Bangladesh, India, and Bhutan.

h.      Promotion and application of Asset –Based Community Development (ABCD) as an alternative to conventional deficit or problem oriented planning approach in local level development.

Our advocacy that we establish a drug rehabilitation center in Bohol to address social problems created by the alarming increase of drug abuse victims and the rise in drug-related crimes in Bohol is part of this commitment to transform the province as a social laboratory for trying new and innovative approaches to development.

This is the opportunity presented by the current drug menace in our midst. Despite non-cooperation of some sectors for reasons they alone know, we are optimistic the New Day Recovery Center (NDRC) Davao will stand by us along with well-meaning development workers and professionals in neighboring provinces so that we are united in our efforts to save lives, our community and country in the face of new challenges. #Lessonsfromprojectsbohol,

NMP/14May2015/4.38 p.m.