SHARING

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

First, I would like to say, I am not new to the practice of sharing lessons from experiences both within or outside projects. I am happy to share that due probably to  the fact I am much older than the people I deal with in my everyday work, I am among the few who have done this sharing stuff under varying circumstances or, if you may allow, under different development contexts.

I did it  as a high school student as a requirement for being an auxiliary member of the Legion of Mary who must share field work experiences with regular members in Lucena years before it became a bustling city  where our provincial high school is located; as a member of Asia’s oldest college fraternity, Upsilon Sigma Phi, with a unique fellowship which requires that “when I meet you, Brother, in the sun I will tell you much”; and still in my college and post-college years, I participated in all those sharing sessions known as CSC or criticism and self-criticism sessions using Mao Tse Tung’s so-called Red Book as a guide.

In our initial professional work after college, we teamed up with the country’s community development pioneers to assess lessons from past projects and formulated the new approach called the “Ilaw ng Buhay: Light of Life” program which features songs and rituals from faith-based practices to convey messages on nutrition, backyard food production and environmental concerns.

In this new approach,  we incorporated sharing of experiences among field team members using their daily log books or diaries during monthly meetings of a management unit prosaically called the “Operations Review Committee,” a think tank and monitoring staff under the big boss, the country’s Father of Community Development, Atty. Ramon P. Binamira. Despite my being many years their junior, I was appointed to chair this task group as Special Assistant on Planning and Operations directly under the President of Project Compassion, a pet initiative of the then First Lady, Imelda R. Marcos, to whom Atty. Binamira directly reported.

In my work for thirteen years for UNDP-assisted projects in fourteen countries in the Pacific and the Maldives, I brought the same bias for bringing introspection and  reflection  among community organizers and fieldworkers which featured sharing of experiences and lessons that focus not only on the technical and objective aspects of development work but also on what was originally referred to in the literature of liberation theology, as well as of people’s revolutions, as the “subjective forces of the revolution.”

In remote atoll countries, almost severed from supply lines of the central government, local communities worked hand in hand with Church groups, island chiefs and island councils in battling child malnutrition. Illiteracy and unemployment, and leveraging local strengths to shake up an indifferent bureucracy to get their fair of much-needed resources from those mandated by local customs and newly-installed legal systems.

You cannot do community mobilization in such a situation using only the project operations manuals provided by donors. To complement the intent of these manuals, we employed the Ilaw ng Buhay approach to reach out to the inner soul of the people, as the missionaries of ancient times, by using the language of their customs and traditions in awakening their collective wisdom and spirit to fight the ills brought about by poverty and inequality.

The lesson is that we must go beyond program frameworks and operations manuals supplied by donors and the central government and interpret development messages and appeals to collective action in ways that also awaken the people’s will to fight for their rights and entitlements under a modern system of governance that seems to speak in a different voice.

In recent years, to my amusement, I witnessed almost the same ritual in sessions of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) arranged by Rene Francisco in Ozamis City for our visiting NGO team composed of myself, Dr. Pomie Buot, our vice president and Romulo Pasco, finance officer. The visit was in early 2014 when Bohol Local Development Foundation was doing field research on how drug rehabilitation certers in Cebu and Mindanao were doing their work and where young people mostly from rich families from Bohol where brought to seek treatment.

Using what they call the Big Book as guide, those who have been victimized by drug addiction and those who have recovered are brought together to reflect on their respective experiences and draw lessons using passages from their “healing Bible.”

Same strategy, same results. You go beyond the ordinary texts of technical jargons and reach out to your inner self to begin the journey towards enlightenment and self-transformation, a pillar of healing and recovery.

I have cited all these in efforts to explain what happened to me when my wife and I were assigned to share our life experiences as is the practice in breakfast sessions of the Brotherhood of Christian Brotherhood and Professionals (BCBP) which we joined in 2015 after eight years of dodging the invitation of Atty. Jun Amora, a family friend, to join. Incidentally, I consider the sharing sessions of BCBP as a powerful component that brings our faith close to us because they deal with how family members actually deal with  challenges, brought about mostly by deviating from their true self, and how they are transformed in the process of doing so and emerged closer to God in rediscovering the path of hope and redemption.

I am embarrassed to admit that despite my decades of having such reflection and sharing session which I had under various contexts, e.g. political, religious, traditional, developmental, etc., I burst into tears and cried unabashedly in front of my BCBP brothers and sisters. It came when I was trying to recall how I left my Lola, Inay and Sister in our barrio in Lagalag, Tiaong , Quezon to pursue this project on establishing the UNICEF-assisted Ilaw International Center here in Bohol. I left them practically on their own so I could pursue this objective to establish what was intended to be a repositiory and training center based on documented actual experiences of householdS and  local communities which we were assisting to liberate themselves from poverty.

I was overwhelmed by a strong guilt feeling which I thought I had already buried deep in my unsconscious by serving as though in pursuit of a death wish in the country’s eight poorest provinces prior to taking on an assignment in remote villages in the Pacific and the Maldives. I thought I had paid back a lapse on my part in dealing with my own family while I pursued what I thought was my mission in life.

 At the same time, I thought of the sacrifices of my friends who gave up their lives that a new nation could be born from the wreckage of a corrupt and cruel order. I resolved to pursue, as my punishment of having survived a cause for which many of my friends died, doing pro-poor programs in places where some of my colleagues in development work usually feared to tread. That was why they referred to my mission as a death wish.

I recalled in my sharing all the events in 2014 which led to our NGO changing track from our building transitional core houses to providing livelihood to families burdened by the problem of having out-of-school youth.

Then we got into this advocacy to assist the youth with drug abuse problem when we started  compiling all the news items which showed bullet-riddled bodies on streets of what used to be a peaceful Bohol, where I sought refuge and fixed my messy life, where I did most of my development work and worked for a normal family life and returned to my religion.

I recalled Jojie and I joined BCBP in 2015, with myself feeling like a kindergarten pupil learning the ABCs of my faith.

All these I recalled when Jojie and I were requested to do our sharing with BCBP a few days before the Bohol Center for Drug Education and Counseling (CEDEC) at the Oak Brook Building was launched.

The press release noted that this facility “completes the comprehensive program to address the drug problem in Bohol.”

The news report also states that the Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Council was also created as early as 1997 as an initiative of Kabataang Barangay. In 1999, the Deparrtment of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) issued in a memorandum to provide for its creation.

The report adds: “This provided for the establishment of the center in Bohol which was later on included in the Bohol Administrative Code.” Hence, it can be deduced, if the Center became operational 19 years ago, we could have avoided this drug menace which is causing misery to a lot of Boholano families.

Yes, we would not have this problem of having to contend with more than 31,000 surrenderees in our midst. But I could be wrong. As it is, life in our province goes on as usual as though there is no such problem, as though the system is not broken elsewhere that allows the influx of illegal drugs and make life miserable for a significant number of families that we need to reach out for and show we are all in this together, that we affirm a philosophical truth that the “liberation of one can only be possible with the liberation of all.”

Those who are not affected by the drug abuse problem need to be liberated from their parochial and selfish interests, lack of social concern and sheer  indifference to deeply-held values that hold human society together.

Lastly, let me point out a bright note cited in the news release printed by all the weekly newspapers:

“The Technical Working Group of the Provincial Government met a couple of months back with a three-member team from the prestigious New Day Recovery Center on a proposed “A Community-Based Drug Demand Support System for the Province of Bohol and its Municipalities.

“Dr. Miriam Peguit-Cue, of both the NDRC and the Professional Regulatory Commission; Jay Valderrama, NDRC program director; and Katrina Pantaleon, psychologist, were consulted for the training of trainors in implementing the community-based approach and in providing advice for the operations of the center that will be integrated into the comprehensive anti-illegal drug campaign.”

Meanwhile, the LGUs of Baclayon and Loay, the Commission of Family and Life in Dauis and the parish church of Maribojoc have signified their intention to serve as social laboratory areas to demonstrate a systematic approach to profiling surrenderees and classifying them into categories (low risk, moderate risk, and high risk) and planning appropriate interventions for each category.

The Holy Name University has approved the proposal to train 37 psychology interns and 10 guidance counselors on the use of ASSIST (Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement and Screening Test) prior to their deployment to interview 427 surrenderees in Baclayon as basis for the planning of relevant interventions. Other relevant topis will be included such as the Science of Addiction and Counseling.

The training will be held at the HNU from November 3 to 5 to be handled by Dr. Miriam Peguit-Cue and her team from NDRC Davao. Interest participants from LGUs and other entities may contact: Margarita – Mobile 09228167965l; Grace – Mobile 09064855358; Karen – 09217374565.

With all these developments, we hope there will be no reason to shed a tear for this vital activity in this journey towards a more humane treatment for surrenderees to ensure a peaceful and drug-free Bohol. ###

NMP/21 Oct. 2016/8.50 p.m. 

A Project Worthdy of Everybody's Support

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

A project with the forbidding title, Community-Based Drug Demand Reduction Program & Recovery Support System (CB-DDRP&RSS) for the Municipality of Baclayon, may well be the answer to the riddle of how to address the messy situation of having hundreds of surrenderees without a comprehensive treatment and recovery program.

I have just been from a meeting between Miriam Peguit-Cue, a noted psychologist from the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) and the New Day Resource Center (NDRC) in Davao City, and Karen Flood-Capapas and Karina Uy, both of Holy Name University and in less than an hour I was swept off my feet listening on what they planned to do to support the quest for a more humane and effective way to deal with 429 surrenderees in Baclayon.

They realized the surrenderees could not fit into the first and only drug rehabilitation center in the province, the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in barangay Laya which can only take in 30 clients at a time.

Getting the surrenderees out of the province to training centers in Cebu and other places would be too costly an option for both the Government and the affected families. Hence, the three psychologists agreed on the need for a community-based approach to the problem.

In a presentation made two weeks ago to the Technical Working Group responsible for the planning and implementation of Bohol’s drug rehabilitation program, Miriam Cue and Jay Valderrama, NDRC program director, cited the following as features of the often-cited community-based approach as opposed to the conventional center-based modality:

“any drug demand reduction effort or recovery support initiative for those with SUD [Substance Use Disorder], that exists within a community and generally operated by people from that very community;

“a cooperative endeavor that utilizes available community resources on a voluntary, self-sufficient and self-sustaining basis”

What they talked about within the hour were based on these precepts, aware that social preparation and community involvement could result in the use of local human and other resources for an affordable and sustainable treatment process for drug abuse victims.

On the matter of applying ASSIST (Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test) to determine the addiction level of surrenderees, the HNU is willing that its 37 senior psychology students be intensively trained on the use of this tool designed, field-tested and validated in several countries by WHO and has been used worldwide since 2010.

NDRC Davao, which has been proposed as training institution for the Drug Advisory Program (DAP) of the Colombo Plan Secretariat based in Sri Lanka, will provide three trainors for this vital and pace-setting activity that will give a vigorous head start to the evolving community-based approach to drug rehabilitation efforts in the province.

With Baclayon aspiring to be the initial pilot area for this innovative approach, the training and eventual deployment of 37 trained psychology interns from HNU will be enough to cover the municipality’s 17 barangays with a two-member research team. As the NDRC presentation says:

“It is important that those responsible for intake, screening and assessment should be trained properly to ensure a systematic process of gathering personal and other pertinent information of the person as basis for determining the severity of the problem, and for identifying the most appropriate means of assistance.”

The NDRC consultants will join hands with the Psychology faculty of HNU to ensure that data collection per surrenderee will be professionally and properly done. This will be in consonance with Principle 2 as articulated by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) in the document, Community-Based Treatment and Care for Drug Use and Dependence:

Principle 2: Screening, Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment-Planning

Comprehensive assessments, diagnosis and treatment planning are the basis for individualized treatments that address the specific needs of each patient and that will also help to engage him/her into treatment.

It is then clear that the resulting database will be used as basis for planning appropriate interventions for each category of clients and thus ensure a more effective counselling and treatment process.

Through this database, high-risk clients can be identified and assigned to drug rehab centers outside the province while planned facilities by the Government and private sector are still being built. It is expected that clients in this category will not exceed 10% or even lower based on observed behavior of the surrenderees.

It has been observed that despite lack of systematic treatment and counselling, there has been no spate of violence and majority seem to refrain from resorting to the old habit by sheer force of will or they are simply restrained by fear of being neutralized (translation: arrested and or killed) by either the police or so-called vigilantes which have sprung up everywhere for the past two months. Others say this is just the calm before the storm.

It has been proposed that the individualized database of the surrenderees can be aggregated and assessed for the purpose of programming the inputs relevant to the current needs and addiction status of the surrenderees.

The following key activities have been recommended once the database has been set up:

-Presentation/discussion of the ASSIST outputs to the Sandigang Bayan,

Mayor and the technical agencies indicating their implications

in terms of relevant interventions, policy support and assistance

to surrenderees in terms of their categorization (1 day)

-Presentation/discussion of findings and possible interventions to Barangay

Captains (1 day). BCs to orient their respective Councils.

-Initial organization and orientation of heads of families with

surrenderees to be done by Barangays under the

Councils with assistance from the Municipal Technical Working Group (TWG) and designated Community Facilitators.

These key activities will ensure broad-based participation of local communities and families , as well as the local governance structures. It is expected that through this participatory process, the healing and treatment process will be de-stigmatized and that a humane perspective on the drug addiction problem in the community will prevail.

Now to answer a question probably in everybody’s mind at this point – how much will be the cost of this community-based project?

Here is the estimated budget estimate as part of the proposal to be submitted to the Baclayon LGU:

SUMMARY OF FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS

Support to establishing a Project Coordination Office

at MTO ………… Php 312,000 (35%)

Orientation of SB, Technical Agencies,

NGOs and CSOs …………………… 60,800 (7%)

Training on the use of ASSIST

for Screening/Assessment ………………… 91,500 (11%)

Encoding the data and storing

them in a central file ……………… …… 80,000 (9%)

Planning workshop to link ASSIST

data with interventions ……………… 47,000 (5%)

Hiring of external consultants to provide

technical assistance ………. 280,000 (33%)

==========

Total ……………………………………Php 871,300

Contingency (15% of Total) ……………… 130.695

GRAND TOTAL …………………….PHP 1,001,995

We think that with resolute commitment and resourcefulness, the LGU will be able to producethis amount with the help of its partners: the Provincial Government, private sector, faith-based organizations, NGOs and civil society organizations.

Or they can do vigorous fund campaigns using all sorts of drvies and tapping the resources of the kababayans abroad. If they can do this to organize festivities, family and class reunions, beauty constests and all sorts of parties , they can surely do this “to save souls” and ensure the survival of our province and its people.

The three ladies I spent the afternoon with know that this crisis is also an opportunity to rediscover our unity around a project worthy of everybody’s support for Bohol and the country as a whole. Indeed may we not all fiddle while Rome burns. For comments, email: npesteslos@gmail.com #drugfreeboholcampaign

NMP/24 Sep 2016/5.20 a.m.

A COALITION OF THE WILLING FOR A DRUG-FREE BOHOL

F     he Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Events during the past two weeks have convinced me we must now vigorously move forward to form a coalition of the willing for a drug-free Bohol and that the first catalyst activity to give it momentum is to  produce a profile of each of the 31,000  drug users who have signified their intention to lead a new life without drugs.

In all our meetings which started Sunday evening, 21 August,  with consultants from the New Day Recovery Center (NDRC) from Davao City to today, Thursday, when we have continued to consult with friends from the drug addiction profession, and listened intently to discussions among social and health workers, I have become convinced that the task of profiling the surrenderees should be done first to ensure a systematic response to the needs of our target beneficiaries, the surrenderees.

If accomplished, this individual database will make it possible to provide interventions relevant to each category of drug-affected surrenderees to be classified as low risk, moderate risk and high risk. I am convinced that this task can be undertaken systematically starting at the municipal or city LGU level.

The provincial government, with its task force, can form a mobile team trained on the use of tools for determining the  extent of addiction of each surrenderee. The resulting database can be used to determine which surrenderees will be put on outpatient basis; those provided with comprehensive counselling and most likely livelihood , and others which can in-patient treatment services. This is part of the strategy proposed by the NDRC consultants as part of their

With this target-specific approach, the government need not worry about putting everybody in a drug rehabilitation center which will be costly and will take years to build taking into account the usual pace of infrastructure planning and implementation in our country.

The key questions in carrying out this important task are as follows: a) what are the tools to be used in profiling the surrenderees; b) who can be trained to administer them; c) how long will the training be conducted; d) how much will be the cost for the training of those who will administer the tools.

The tools used are as follows:

-ASSIST or Alcohol and Substance Screening Test

-ASI (Addiction Severity Index)

-Severity Index Form

-Psychology Tests

In a preliminary study conducted by a technical working group in Baclayon, the duration per training will be three days; two persons will be needed to be trained from each barangay; and that the expenses will be for training materials; meals and snacks; and transportation.

If participants will be trained on all four tools, the cost per participant will be Php 488 per day or a total Php 3,723 per participant per day.

It was the consensus of the group that ways must be found to reduce the costs of training the staff who will administer the tools, usually the health and social workers.

At this point, It is crucial to understand the difference between screening and assessment. I looked it up and I found this:

• Screening is a process for evaluating the possible presence of a particular problem. The outcome is normally a simple yes or no.
• Assessment is a process for defining the nature of that problem, determining a diagnosis, and developing specific treatment recommendations for addressing the problem or diagnosis.

Hence, in this light, since the surrenderees are identified as drug users, it may be asked whether we need still to use the ASSIST as a tool. I heard it in one of the meetings that the ASI may be the only appropriate tool to use.

The third tool may also be used but the psychological tests may be used later once the surrenderees have been categorized. If we use only two tools, ASI and the Severity Index Form, we will be able to reduce the costs of profiling the surrenderees.

During the meeting of the provincial Technical Working Group, I got the impression that the social workers and the health workers have been trained on the use of the screening tools. Hence, it is just a matter of mobilizing and training them as trainors this time by the consultants to be able to cascade the training at the municipal level.

As in practically all cases, how to fund activities is the key concern whether at provincial and municipal level. Hence, there must be a way to encourage LGUs to work closely with drug addiction professionals and find more cost-effective ways to do the profiling of surrenderees.

Yesterday, I was in Sierra Bullones in the company of former UN colleagues, Cecilio Adorna and Richard Prado,  as observer in the conduct of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) as part of formulating the 2017-2022 Philippine National Nutrition Plan. It occurred me while listening to their quite intense discussions that the keen interest and leadership of the Local Chief Executives is key to mobilizing staff and resources to ensure that any national plan and projects formulated will get the support of the various sectors.

We have learned this lesson through forty years of working in projects implemented in partnership with local governments in various countries. Always there is the challenge to involve local political leaders so that they will help to mobilize resources for programs considered as top priority.

In Sierra Bullones, the Municipal Health Offricer and the Municipal Nutrition Officer have provided the leadership, with the support of the Municipal Mayor, to raise funds for its Municipal Nutrition Program. We hope the same tenacity of purpose will be shown in supporting the profiling of surrenderees so that the latter can eventually be provided with relevant interventions appropriate to their addiction severity status.

I learned from the MHO, Dr. Janice Belleza, that on the matter of profiling surrenderees, all ten nurses under her office have all been trained in the use of ASSIST. The next step is to decide whether they still have to be trained with the other three tools to be able to start this all-important work.

We need the drug addiction professionals to start a discussion on this vital issue. This is the time to review or evaluate the screening and assessment tools and decide which ones to use given the crucial task ahead of providing relevant services to the surrenderees.

Otherwise we may be going around in circles in planning interventions most appropriate at this time in managing the situation of having more than 31,000 surrenderees in our province. At this critical stage, we need a coalition of the willing for a drug-free Bohol but we cannot do organizing and social mobilization work if we do not know exactly the extent of the problems affecting the target beneficiaries.

For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com ###

NMP/02 September 2016/4.11 p.m. 

MORE THAN A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

F     The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR  MANIEBO  PESTELOS

While I visited my home province, Quezon, several times in the past to attend class reunions, helped implement projects and attend burials of relatives and close friends, today it is different from all previous visits. Today, 19 August, I came  to be one of five awardees to receive the Quezon Medalya ng Karangalan Award on Public Service – Community Development, one of five awards given this year, the others being for spiritual leadership, culture and the arts, culinary arts and farming.

On the way from the airport in Tagbilaran City, Bohol, my adopted province for thirty-four years, to Lucena City, the provincial capital where the awards ceremonies would be held,  I was in a van accompanied by my wife, Jojie; a close friend from UP Los Banos, Bing Manalo-Santos, from the sorority, Sigma Delta Phi,  aligned with our  fraternity, Upsilon Sigma Phi; my daughter from a previous relationship during the turbulent martial law years, Cecille, her husband, Edwin, and Aicelle, one of their three daughters.

The composition of those who rode in the van with me represented some marked episodes in my life, more of a coincidence actually rather than by deliberate purpose or design. The others who were supposed to ride with us could not make it for various reasons, mostly for being unable to change previous engagements.

I asked permission from my co-passengers if I could  carry out an itinerary previously submitted to my Quezon High Class 1958 classmates, Nini Lopez-De Asis and Butch Gonzales, volunteer facilitators of my visit during this important occasion.

And so it came to pass that I had a sentimental journey yesterday visiting old friends before we settled for the night in this guest house called WalZen, acronym for the names of the owners, Walter and Zenaida Lopez De Asis.

First we dropped by the home of Manuel and Nora Ramirez whom I knew from my college years at UPLB in the Sixties. Manoling, a 73-year old brod from the Upsilon, had been bedridden for eleven years after a stroke and brain surgery. I remember him as a debonair senior fraternity brother, one of those “crush ng bayan” guys, along with Brods Willie Herrera, Boy Balasoto, Jun Mejia and Joven de Leon  with his lean, athletic body and a perpetual seductive smile on his face.

 It was shocking to see him here on his sick bed, looking helpless and probably waiting only for the final signature, as we used to joke in the old days.

I was proven wrong with this initial impression. While lying in bed, he could do Facebook posting by the sheer ingenuity of being able to position his laptop above his bed and tapping the keyboard with the fingers of his left hand. He could listen to radio and view TV by remote control and positioning the sets conveniently near his bed.

He carries on conversation with his wife, Nora, and guests by writing on his note pad. His ears, by all indications, are still in good order for perfect listening.  During the visit, he asked me about a) where did I go after college; b) what happened to the brods who joined the underground movement in those days; c) how many are my children; d) where do I live now; e) where will I go after visiting him.

We were informed  by Bing, his frequent visitor who would always bring his favorite ayungin and other f fish menus, about his long-kept secret: Manny could paint with his toes! His batch mate in the fraternity, Nestor Navasero, taught him how to do it during one of his visits from Canada where he has lived for years. Someday we would bring his collection of art works and do an exhibit for all  the world to see and be convinced you need not feel helpless while paralyzed in bed.

We laughed with him recalling our crazy adventures as fraternity brods on this campus in the Sixties, including raids on poultry farms just for the sheer challenge of eluding security guards and passers-by and going back to the frat house to other brods waiting for pulutan or sumsuman. As I looked at Manoling on his sick bed, I was thinking that being paralyzed could not be a hindrance to living a happy life. Manoling, you are a hero in that vital sense and we are all proud of you!

Next stop was in the residence of Pete and Mimi Cortes-Ocampo whom I knew also way back in the Sixties at UP Los Banos. I sat next to Pete in my animal husbandry class and knew him as the quiet, scholarly type. Mimi was a Sigma Deltan and distinguished herself as a popular campus figure identified with social causes. We lost track of each other for years but after three decades or so, I finally met her at the UPLB alumni officer where she worked.

I met them several weeks ago during their field evaluation mission in Bohol for CARD projects. My wife and I brought them home for dinner and Pete quickly noted I shared something in common with Mimi: our house was filled with all sorts of files from projects, all waiting to be properly assigned to shelves and boxes all over the house. We validated Pete’s observation in this trip when we saw Mimi’s files everywhere in all sorts of storage spaces and shelves and we all shared a good laugh about it all.

Mimi accompanied us to the office of MADECOR, probably the country’s oldest development consultancy firm, having been founded in early 70s by a team of former scholars and close friends. There I met Pids Del Rosario, MADECOR president who was at one time president of the UP Los Banos Alumni Association. Last year, Pids nominated me to receive the UPLB Outstanding Alumni Award for Community Service and Local Governance. A former awardee and a fraternity brother, Leon Arceo, endorsed the nomination and I got the award.

This visit was in connection with that award, too. When we went home to Bohol after the awarding ceremony 09 October last year, my wife promptly displayed the Mariang Makiling trophy on top of the piano where the other trophies and plaques and laminated certificates were usually displayed. That night after we arrived, a gust of monsoon wind swept away all the things on top of the piano, including my trophy, which promptly broke in several pieces.

The quest for a replacement brought me face to face with my friend Pids, whose help Mimi had sought for the replacement of that trophy. Pids waived the payment for the replacement and Mimi had to bring me here to say thank you to my friend.

From the MADECOR office, this acronym the meaning of which I could not articulate despite knowing the consultancy firm and what it does for underserved clients of development, we went to visit the couple Rem and Kits Bernal-Torres, close friends from our student days through all the decades of alternate joys and despair. I usually drop by their house on the way to destinations this side of Luzon mostly to share updates on family goings-on which could not be covered by FB posting and emails.

The Torreses were usually the willing victims of my unending gripes about life’s circumstances in those days when I was forever growing up. The day with them would not be complete without gentle admonitions to be good.  They played the shepherds to my stubborn self all throughout our student days and those years I had to endure periods of doubt and intense quest for what could be a lifelong mission in life which prosaically turned out to be just to be good at making projects work among the poor.

In this visit on the way to receiving an award from my home province, I was trying to say my gratitude and that of my family to the two of them who had done the most to keep me out of harm’s way in my pursuit of the true path towards liberation from false Messiahs on my cross.

In Lagalag, in this village where I was born, I requested the van driver Rolly to stop where our house used to stand. I remember Rem convinced me to just sell the piece of land left by my Mother and Grandmother in the 80s when they passed away because I could not manage to visit it regularly.

 I looked at the place which had become a gasoline station and I could not bear to walk towards the place where I had spent my childhood for fear I would hear the voices of my mother, grandmother and sister admonishing me for abandoning this place. I just closed my eyes to momentarily pray and then I crossed over to the other side of the road where our neighbor, Ka Nida, stood by the entrance to their house as though expecting our visit after so many decades of my absence from this neighborhood where I grew up.

In the next barangay, Taguan, already a part of Candelaria, the municipality next to Tiaong on the way to the capital, Lucena, I requested the driver to stop in front of the elementary school and called my cousin, Rhodora Pestelos-Renacido. She is a retired nurse who settled in this village where most of the Pesteloses live rather than stay in Holland where she and husband Efren had worked for decades.

Efren came to the highway where our van was parked and led us to their farm house, which turned out to be an elegant two-story building in the middle of what looked like a vast plantation. Dora showed Jojie her collection of dolls and handicraft pieces she has been teaching mothers in the area to make during their spare time so they augment family income. Efren, on the other hand, related to Bing and the others in our group their efforts to develop the place by planting fruit trees and engaging in duck raising.

He recalled that my close friend, Cecilio Adorna, came to visit the place with his son Eman to find out how they were raising ducks for to produce the delicacy known world-wide as balut.

It was around 8 in the evening when we reached Lucena. In front of Max’s restaurant by the highway to Pagbilao, I promptly called my former high school classmate, Nini. She owns the place called WalZen where we would stay for the night.

4.18 a.m., the morning after the awards program. I write this part of the column in a hotel in the middle of the city where another classmate, Butch Gonzales, had booked Jojie and I to spend the night prior to our departure tomorrow.  

We were informed our classmates from high school would come at lunch today for a sort of reunion. I am thankful for Nini and Butch for making our stay here more than a sentimental journey to our home province.

It was actually a journey to reaffirm the common ties we share with both relatives and friends to make life a little more meaningful by dedicating it to a worthy cause. The journey continues. ###

NMP/20 August 2016/4.38 a.m. /Lucena City  

PROPOSED SMALL-SCALE BUT HIGH-IMPACT PROJECTS FOR DRUG REHABILITATION

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

For the past two weeks, I was able to finalize and submit three project proposals to potential donors after a period spent in research and consultations on how best to respond at municipal and barangay or household levels to a desperate situation considered by many as a tragedy waiting to happen.

These proposals are meant to address a messy situation where hundreds of identified and self-confessed drug addicts and pushers have been left unattended while supposedly in the care of households and local communities.

 Let me share these proposals with you in this week’s column. I still nourish this hope that new leaders will arise from local communities to push for these projects while waiting for the big national program to come with ample resources, possibly with the PHP1 billion pesos donated by San Miguel Corp. to the government for the building of drug rehab centers.

These proposed projects, which can be considered small-scale but high-impact projects,  are as follows:

1) A facility with the generic name, Bohol Drug Dependency Rehabilitation Center. it was conceived and designed as thesis requirement for the BS Architecture degree course last schoolyear  at the Bohol Island State University (BISU). The team spent time at the Balay Kahayag site in Laya, Bohol to study features of the project site and see how it could be linked to the current facility which the study was supposed to complement and enhance.

The team was headed by Luigi Rulida with the following as members: Isidro Macabenta, Jayson Rey Sayson, and Ma. Josephine Sarigumba. Their adviser was Arch. Nino Guidaben, former Ayala Foundation scholar, an internationally trained heritage and environment conservation architect. As early as 2014, Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF) funded his study trip to Davao City so assess the positive and negative aspects in the design of drug rehab centers.

Like his students, he also visited the Balay Kahayag site in Laya to familiarize himself with the place as location of a drug rehab facility.

The proposed facility would increase the intake capacity of the current FITWBK to another 30 clients. It was designed to integrate nature in the healing and recovery process of the clients. The concept of all buildings is from bahay kubo with its roofing inspired by leaf concept

The project cost is Php 62 million. I asked the permission of the team leader to send the design and costing to a close friend in Australia who volunteered to present it to potential donors, such as the Rotary of Australia. Anybody interested in helping raise funds so we could build the center in Bohol could just email us at npestelos@gmail.com.

2) Outreach and Drop-In Centers (ODICs) . I have written about this vital facility a number of times in my column. Under the present situation, it will serve as a vital facility to link surrenderees and their families to an outreach center where can access diagnostic, counselling and referral services.

We have estimated the budget to establish an ODIC including the maintenance costs for a year as follows:

1.1  Building cost for 17 sq.m. structure

       at Php 18,000 per sq m.                             PHP 306,000*

1.2  Office equipment  (1 Laptop; LCD; 2

       tables; 6 chairs; 1 electric fan)                             62,500

1.3  Staff (1 Psychologist; 1 Social

       Worker)                                                                  387,525

1.4   Utilities (Light and water; office

         supplies; communication and

         transport)                                                               74,400

TOTAL                                                                     PHP 830,425

If there is an existing office space or underutilized building which can be used as outreach center, the e the annual cost to maintain an ODIC will be:  Php 524, 425.

Additional costs will be consultancy fees for trainers who will train the ODIC staff and to include training supplies, food, etc. : Php 100,000. Hence, the total costs to establish and maintain one ODIC for one year will be: Php 624,425. Several municipalities can share a common ODIC to reduce the operations costs and achieve efficiency in operations.

3) Good Samaritan Project.

The first project I came up with more than a month ago. The title is tentative. In our consultation meeting, Fr. Rara said we must change the name because people from other religions may not like the term. No problem with the suggestion. The title is tentative; it can still be revised.

The project concept was based on the familiar Biblical passage on the Good Samaritan which our action group at the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals  (BCBP) reflected on during one of our meetings. I spun it off as a project concept based on the idea that we could be our brother’s keeper during this time that needy persons are, as it were, left dying and helpless by the road.

I believe that this can be done while waiting for the Government to establish a drug rehab center in addition to the one we have now which you have visited.

Basically it is a community participation approach to address the presence of an overwhelming number of drug users without a counselling or treatment program. We can pilot this in the three municipalities which are in the catchment area of the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center.

We can work with either the Church, an NGO or LGU to coordinate the project. We can start with a budget of Php 200,000 to Php 500,000 per municipality, depending on its population size and topography,  which will pay for administrative, training and social preparation costs. The important thing is to reach out to the drug users as early as possible, categorize them as to the severity of addiction, refer serious cases to the drug rehab center and provide counseling and other interventions, e.g. livelihood to drug users in other categories.

Here are the specifics of the project so that we need not think of rehabilitation in terms of a rehabilitation center:

For background and rationale, I note:

Even prior to the ascension to power of the new national Administration, which has pledged to eradicate in six months the pernicious drug abuse problem and drug-related crimes  in the country, there has been a spate of killings of drug pushers and drug lords, and probably a number of ordinary drug users.

The situation has created a climate of fear which has led to the surrender of an overwhelming number of drug pushers and users all over the country. In Bohol, for instance, the number of those who surrendered have increased from an initial 3,000 to than 30,000 in less than a month. Due to lack of drug rehabilitation centers, coupled with the high cost of rehabilitation, it is expected that most of those who surrendered will end up in the custody of their respective families without access to systematic counselling and treatment,

It is common knowledge, however, that drug addiction results in brain damage and psychological aberrations and the families are not equipped to handle such day-to-day problems that may arise on account of these factors.

The situation arising from the mass surrender of drug users requires a systematic pre-treatment, treatment and post-treatment process undertaken under the guidance of a rehabilitation center or drug addiction professionals working in close coordination with the affected families and local communities.

This project represents an effort to address the problems that may arise on account of the mass surrender of drug users and the need to assist the family cope with possible problems that may occur on account of lack of access to adequate rehabilitation services.

For Overall Goal, I put the following:
To ensure that each surrenderee is provided a comprehensive and appropriate package of services from pre-treatment to full recovery.

I listed the following as specific objectives

a.       To establish baseline data on the condition of each surrenderee which will serve as basis for treatment and post-treatment interventions;

b.      To ensure systematic provision of counselling and other services with the full cooperation and assistance of the family and the local community, as well as the local government;

c.       To monitor regularly the progress of each client and adjust inputs accordingly;

d.      To document outstanding cases of full recovery and successful integration with both the family and the community.

To achieve these objectives, I put the following as comprising the implementation strategy of the project:  

a)      Partnership with all key sectors with specific inputs to deliver;

b)      Mobilization of volunteers who will be organized into teams assigned to specific cluster of target clients in specific location and linked to specific focal person in the project management committee;

c)       Organization of families of clients to ensure spiritual and other support to target clients.

d)      Designation of a pilot area where implementation approaches can be tested based on current organizational capability, existence of willing partners, and affordability.

For key activities, I listed the following:

-Link up with drug rehab centers in nearby regions and consult them if they can help conduct a systematic diagnosis of those arrested and those who surrendered to determine a) who can be treated at home; b) those who must be treated in a drug rehab facility; and (c) those whose mental conditions has worsened due to long period of drug use and must be committed to a mental hospital instead.

-Recruit and train volunteers who can serve as counsellors for both drug abuse victims and their respective families;

-Train nursing, psychology and/or social work or social science students and their teachers on the use of diagnostic tools so that the diagnosis could be done on a massive scale simultaneously to cover most of the 30,000 surrenderees;

-Formulate and implement a short-term orientation or basic skills training course for all the volunteers who are willing to do this work;

-Liaise with partner drug rehab centers and institutions and seek their advice on how to fast-tract treatment at substantially lower costs;

-Organize an interim core team who will assist in mobilizing support from all sectors (Government, Church and faith-based organizations; private sector; civil society organizations, academic institutions, etc.

-Get an updated list of surrenderees and all relevant data about them for planning purposes.

For Organization and Management, I listed the following:

--Decide on the initial coverage area of the project which will serve as learning site for approaches, methodologies and detailed organization work of building local area teams linked to central management

-Get a list of identified surrendeeres per area (barangay; purok)

-Organize them into 5-member Units; let them elect a leader among themselves; designate a place where they can meet regularly. A Project Officer (PO), who will come from the coordinating organization, will handle initially one Unit  assisted by a volunteer to come from partner institution such as Holy Name University (HNU) or other academic institutions, Church group, etc.

The Assistant Project Officer (APO) , who can either be a Volunteer or a member of the coordinating agency,  will be trained to assume the tasks of the PO someday so there is a system for recruiting more volunteers to do this vital task.

-All POs will be trained on how to perform their various tasks; they can be organized as a group, too.

-Likewise all APOs will be organized as a group, too, so systematic training inputs can be provided  and the sharing of experiences facilitated. All Unit Leaders may also be organized as a group for the purpose of imparting training skills.

-A Project Management Committee (PMC) will be organized at a higher level to supervise two teams 

– a Project Support Team to take care of logistics and funding and admin support; and a Training and Advocacy Team to handle training and  information support to project operations.

I also proposed that Families of GSN Members will be organized  into a GSN Family Association and can elect their own officers and a PO assigned to it, too. It can be linked to the PMO.For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com  ### NMP/13 Aug 2016/5.13 a.m.