For The
Bohol Tribune
In
This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO
PESTELOS
The response to our appeal that we build a drug
rehabilitation center cum mental health facility in Bohol to address the
swelling ranks of drug abuse victims and those with aberrant behavior remains
lukewarm if not downright tepid. We
remain hopeful, however, an overwhelming majority will see the merit of coming
out from the dark where their fears and timidity have consigned them to
passivity and inaction. This hope, which flickers with diminishing intensity
from day to day, is fanned to renewed brightness each time we receive
encouragement from people especially from those we have not met personally.
One such person is Mam Corazon Jamero Logarta,
retired professor of Holy Name University, who emailed us 05 June to say she
was a regular reader of this column and noted that “the envisioned establishment
of a rehabilitation center here in our province has not taken off despite the
fact the its plan has taxied for quite a long while already.”
The former psychology and philosophy teacher adds: “ I cannot understand what is keeping the plan from
being realized when the community has everything to gain and nothing to lose ,
sociologically, psychologically, and spiritually.”
She then asks: “Is it possible that people, even if interested in the
project, do not know where and how they can help? Or if the specifics have been
drawn, is it possible that the interested groups or individuals need to be
contacted, engaged, invited and /or interviewed?”
In response to this query, we would like to assure Mam Corazon Logarta that
with our limited means at present, our NGO is trying everything possible to
reach as many people possible with this appeal using mostly social media due to
our limited resources.
Mam Logarta notes: “It would be such a pity if the envisioned
project would not be realized. If it was realized in Davao, in Cebu and
other provinces , why not in Bohol.? If there is anything that this 82 year old
lady can do, let me know. through email or over a cup of coffee, here at home
(Garcia-Hernandez).”
The good-hearted professor actually came yesterday to Crescencia, a
newly-opened meeting place in Baclayon, earlier than those who were scheduled
to attend the continuing series of consultations among those who support the
current advocacy to do something concrete about the drug abuse problem in
Bohol. She opted for a one-on-one meeting since the others had not arrived yet
and she had to go back to Garcia Hernandez.
We informed her that at this sixth month of our advocacy, after
preparing and presenting to potential project partners a total of seven
proposals, we have achieved the following milestones:
-an assurance from the New Day Recovery Center in Davao that they would
invest in a similar facility in Bohol on a piece of land made available through
us upon completion of a feasibility study that they themselves will conduct;
-willingness of the staff of It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment
Center headed by Rene Francisco in Ozamiz City to come to Bohol and provide
technical advice in setting up an Outreach and Drop-In Center for Drug
Dependents;
-commitment by noted Psychiatrist Miriam Cue of NDRC Davao and the
Professional Regulatory Commission to conduct training and/or facilitate the
training of those who will be involved in pre-treatment and treatment services for
community facilitators and technical staff with assistance from the Colombo
Plan Drug Assistance Program based in Sri Lanka;
-commitment of Fr. Jimbo Saco, newly-installed parish priest of
Maribojoc, to study how a Drop-In Center can be established and operated in his
parish;
-willingness of several officers/officials of the Municipality of
Baclayon to support a program on livelihood for out-of-school youth as part of
a drug rehabilitation project;
-acceptance by retired Dean Carrie Tharan of Miriam College of her
nomination as member of the Board of Trustees of BLDF to assume as Chair of the
Advocacy and Fund Raising Committee;
-organization of several support groups to identify target contributors
to the fund drive and to carry out activities in support of the Youth
Livelihood Assistance Project;
-cash donations from Ian and Sally Robinson, Vicky Carias Goodall, and
Ingrid Schoof to kick off the fund
campaign in a network of friends most whom I have not met personally; and
-commitment of former classmates at the Quezon Provincial High School to
sell copies of the 2nd edition of the book, Old Warrior and Other
Poems, to support BLDF and its advocacy for Youth Livelihood and the building
of Outreach and Drop-in Centers for Drug Dependents in Bohol.
I admit these so-called milestones do not amount to anything near to
helping us achieve the ultimate goal of having drop-in centers and a drug
rehabilitation center cum mental health facility for a province of 1.2 million
people. They are however significant in
a situation where there has been no specific and concrete initiative before.
My close friends both inside or outside Facebook often ask what gives me
hope that we will achieve this almost impossible goal of building these
facilities in Bohol given the general apathy of the public themselves and
apparently their leaders in faith-based organizations; in the schools where their children spend most
of their time in a day; the offices whose
companies will be the first to suffer should there be a breakdown of the social
order, in case the number of
brain-damaged individuals exceeds those with normal and heathy brains; the
governance mechanisms and community structures which will be prevented from
functioning properly due to the breakdown of law and order and, more
importantly, the collapse of moral authority within the family and the local
institutions.
Why do I still nourish hope in the face of this seemingly formidable wall
that separates our advocacy and the events of everyday life with different priorities
identified by the Government and the Church which seem to exclude the need to
address the drug menace in our midst?
I still hope that the forces of goodness will triumph over evil, that a
cause powered by hope, love and faith will win the hearts and minds of the
people as shown by the triumph of previous advocacies we have been involved in through
the years in this province we all profess to love forever and ever:
-the peace and development efforts carried out in this province by the
simple distribution of seeds, water and sanitary toilets, the provision of
roads and schools to remote areas made possible by invisible hands toiling in
the night to plan details and by the extension agents of various disciplines
reaching out to people unnoticed and unrecognized by those in power who appropriate
their accomplishments among the people as their own;
-the elimination or at best, the massive reduction of child
malnutrition, infant deaths, school drop-out rates, illiteracy and the sheer
despair common among the young in remote villages which preoccupied development
workers in an earlier age carried out unnoticed by the hierarchy of
self-promotion and bureaucratic intrigues;
-the elimination of distrust and anger on the part of those who have
been wronged by the corrupt ways of those who are supposed to lead them by the
simple demonstration of thoughtfulness and caring during moments of profound anguish
and sorrow done by anonymous field workers of various creeds in heroic efforts
to bring a sense of social justice to victims of injustice and inequality
fostered by divisive political forces;
-the simple gestures of kindness among neighbors extended to those most
in need and encouraged by hundreds of development workers across agencies and
faiths often without the knowledge of the bureaucrats who rule over them with
archaic rules and standards.
As long as these disparate remnants of enlightened civilization exist in
small settlements and clusters of organized living to inspire families and
local communities to strive and struggle for a better life, then there is hope
we can still bring such streams and rivers and seas of our humanity back to
what we call the vast ocean of our human struggle for a better life in Bohol.
Now I rest my case. #newdaybohol
