THE BOHOL WE WANT

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

The start of the year is a good time to take a hard look at our current situation and see how we can move forward to have the province we have always wanted in recent years.

As local papers have reported it, based on official government reports, 70% of crimes in the province are drug-related and that Bohol has become a major transshipment point for illegal drugs. Hence, we would like to see a drug-free Bohol and that something is done to rehabilitate the growing number of drug addicts primarily among the youth.

Crimes against property and persons are on the rise and gory crimes unheard of before have been the subject of page one news stories in local pictures complete with pictures of victims and suspects. We want the old Bohol of several years ago where the crime rate is almost zero.

Street children and beggars are practically in all  rapidly-urbanizing communities with many of them asking for alms around the church, malls and parking lots. We want a province where disadvantaged groups are attended to and provided assistance by mandated agencies which have budget for this social concern. Well, we want a beggar-free Bohol.

Prostitution seems to be on the rise with many young girls in scanty clothing accompanying aging foreign-looking tourists. Human trafficking may be on the rise. We want a province which can have all forms of human trafficking determined and put under control, if not totally eliminated. We want a province not complacent about the issue in a subconscious or deliberate effort to look the other way for the sake of achieving economic growth through tourism.

Accusations of corruption have been levelled against political leaders who are in power by some aspiring politicians for almost a year. We want to see a Bohol where politicians are mature enough to facilitate quick resolution of issues or a province which can usher in a new era of mature political dialogues rather than what amounts to as rumor-mongering. This erodes public confidence in governance given all these media stories about PDAP, DAP and other forms of alleged corruption in high places.

Delivery of services through HEAT (Health, Economic, Agriculture, Tourism) Caravans have been carried out regularly in capital towns where services are made available to the people. Those who are from remote barangays, those communities located more than seven (7) kms. from the town centers, may not be reached by such service modality. We would like a return to old-fashioned community development efforts in Bohol in which trained and experienced extension workers are fielded to remote areas in a municipality to facilitate the delivery of much-needed services to the neediest segments of the population.

Agricultural products, such as vegetables, fruits, meat products, are reportedly imported from other provinces which account for the high prices of these goods. We want a Bohol self-sufficient in food products and able to market excess products to the rest of the region or to other regions. We want a Bohol where idle are systematically identified and put to productive use.

Information on basic development indicators, such as child malnutrition, infant mortality, maternal mortality, unemployment, drop-out rates, agricultural production, etc.  is not readily available at local government level to guide  planning, implementation and monitoring. We want a return to the old practice in Bohol where a common database existed at municipal and barangay levels and used as basis for identifying projects preparatory to detailed planning and implementation.

There seems to be a disconnect with what Pope Francis and the pronouncements and practices of the dominant Church. Local sermons are more for spiritualizing the faith rather than part of an active engagement with matters reflecting a pro-poor bias in keeping with the teachings of the Messiah. We hope to see in Bohol more social involvement of the faithful in addressing poverty and raising awareness about environmental concerns rather than organizing social functions commemorating anniversaries. Let us return to the Old Bohol where priests are a source of moral guidance especially during times of crises.

Academic institutions, such as colleges and universities, seem to have lost their social relevance by lack of direction in their extension and development work. We would like to see more active involvement of such institutions in grassroots development, specifically in documenting issues related to local poverty and climate change and serve as objective evaluator and documentor of project experiences at household and community level to enable them to influence the direction of local planning and implementation.

The NGO community has become merely an extension of government functions rather than an active cooperating partner in development work. This does not mean playing an adversary role to Government. We want a province where NGOs or Civil Society Organizations “take advantage of opportunities left behind by massive Government and donor efforts,” as we used to say it during the heyday of the NGOs in the 1980s.

I must stop here and give the readers a chance to say what is the Bohol they want. For feedbacks, email me at npestelos@gmail.com #Boholwewant

NMP/1 Jan 2016/12.37 p.m.