Holiday Mood

Both cities were in holiday mood when I left Jakarta and arrived in Manila. Jakarta was about to celebrate Idil Fitri or the end of Ramadan, while Manila was preparating for 1 Nov for All Souls Day when Filipinos go to cemeteries to remember the dead. The airports and hotels and the streets were filled with people all rushing to the provinces. The police forces in both cities have announced they are ready with full security during the holidays, 4-5 Nov for Indonesia and 31 Oct to 1 Nov for the Philippines.

Both countries announced they were in full alert against terrorism. The bomb blasts in India added to the paranoia. How could you enjoy the holidays with this threat in the air?

But the domestic flight I took last Saturday from Manila to Tagbilaran was quite full. I could not find any familiar face. It seemed all the other passengers were domestic or foreign tourists. Bohol is still the country's top tourist destination. If they are scared of terrorist attacks, nobody shows it. The beaches and the cemeteries and the malls are all full of people here in Tagbilaran City. Looks like everybody is determined to enjoy the holidays with or without this warning against terrorist attacks.

Back2Manila

10.00 a.m. Jakarta time, which is one hour ahead of RP time. I have checked the Blog section and found out my entry yesterday is missing. Where can it be?

Perhaps it goes to be saved somehow. So, for the moment, Jakarta Blues2 is on deck.

I arrived late this morning, almost 9. I usually come half past 8. The taxi I took from the hotel had a different route. What normally takes 15 minutes took us 30 minutes. Different drivers, I found out during the past 6 days, have different ways to go to the office from the Hotel Mega Anggrek. It's good in a way. I get to see different parts of the city.

But this morning is quite different. I was charged Rp 33,000, which is Rp 10,000 more than my usual fare. I could not argue with the taxi driver because he had this table that clearly showed what I would pay given the route we took. But, of course, he assumed I did not know some other routes which could be shorter.

It's like I am in Manila. Taxi drivers always prove to passengers they are smarter. How about putting them in one city or region, for that matter, and let them run things? Probably things will run better because taxi drivers anywhere in the world are smarter than the rest of us. They will always get you to the place you want to go - and they are so creative about the possible routes to take to bring you there.

Now I go back to this EU proposal I am preparing for Habitat Indonesia. Will Jakarta Blues3 disappear, too, in cyberspace? Let's see what happens.

Jakarta Blues

Still here at the Habitat office in Jakarta. Martha, the secretary, has phoned in to say if I need a taxi. I said yes, at 5.30 p.m., as usual. I have been here since Tuesday last week. The mission is simple enough; produce a proposal for EU funding. It will be similar to the Mindanao Peace Build project that Habitat Philippines submitted to EU last August.

Handoko, the Habitat National Director, assigned four staff to the project proposal team. We all thought at first that Manado would be the project area. When I checked the EU website last Wednesday, after a full day of taking down notes, I found out Manado was not among the five preferred sites for the donor assistance. Thursday we finally decided, after another day of reading, comparing notes and discussions, that we would zero in on Nusa Tenggara Timur or West Timor as the proposed project area.

More discussions last Friday enough grist for my mill during the weekend. I was not able to go the nearby Anggrek Mall. I just stayed in my room churning out around 30 pages of text. Today, most of the team members are gone. Vinon got married last Saturday. Pauline went back to Bandung. Handoko is on a mission to Manado. Glenn left for West Timor yesterday.

Fortunately, I was able to discuss things with Ricky and Lanny. They gave me fresh ideas. Now I have to revise substantial portion of my draft.

Jakarta is getting to be a ghost town. I was told when it's about the end of Ramadan, people go back to their hometowns for celebration, or in anticipation of the celebration of the fasting season. I read in the papers sales are slow in the shops because of low purchasing power due to the 126% increase in fuel prices here.

Now my taxi is here.

Old Friends

Old friends have kept turning up during the last two years or so. I am trying to figure out if there is some kind of logic behind it all. Or, is this just coincidence?

Richard Prado and Ces Adorna, friends from those UNICEF days 20 years ago, managed to visit us here two years ago. Mil Sevilla, my close friend in high school, visited us here during the same period that the two were here. Of course, I see Rem Torres, my closest friend in college, now and then. Last Oct. 2, we were with him and his wife, Kits, in Manila to celebrate his birthday, which was on the day before.

Bituin Gonzales, my kumare, was here in Laya, Bohol a couple of times this year. I had not met her for almost 20 years, I think. I met Ruth and Sammy Ruiz in Dumaguete City in early 2004 after years of not seeing them. I know Ruth from those NEDA days and Sammy from our UP Los Banos days. Talking about UPLB, I met Dr. Willy Padolina after decades of not seeing him on a plane from Jakarta to Manila. That was early August this year.

I just came back from Dili, Timor Leste. There I met Offie Valdecanas, our Mother General during those country programming days with UNICEF in the late 80s. She was with Dr. Arnold Calooy, my inaanak sa kasal.
There must be a reason why I have kept bumping with old friends in recent years. I feel happy seeing them again.

Still at BLDF

It's 6.25 p.m. Still here at the the BLDF office. BLDF is Bohol Local Development Foundation, the NGO which has pioneered the household poverty database system here in Bohol. It was quite a busy day here.

Arnold, our database management specialist, had to finish putting into the poverty database the Habitat home partners from two villages, Bool in Tagbilaran City, and Tabalong in Dauis municipality. We were quite excited when we finally was able to link the poverty status of each home partner to their home repayment status. This is a breakthrough. Now we at Habitat can be guided by the database on what strategy to take to improve the repayment rates of home partners. It is easy to see what to do with home partners who are no deprivation but still refuse to pay. This is clearly a case of wrong values and will have to be dealt as such. It can justify using the full force of the law to evict such home partner from the house for which he or she refuses to pay despite having the means to do so.

The others burdened by high deprivation levels need a different strategy. Perhaps our youth volunteers can help them identify a project to lessen their other burdens so that in the near future they can realize some savings and pay for the house.

We were also able to compare the poverty status of home partners with the rest of the households in the village where they live. The database can also compare the poverty status of home partners based on 12 core indicators.

Let's see the other home partners in other places, how they will rate based on this database. More next time.

Thanks, Rence!

Rence Sore, a friend from the Solomons, turned up in cyberspace and asked that I sent him a copy of the reply made by Miss International from the Philippines when asked what would she say to the rest of the world who think RP is a country of nannies. I gave him a copy of the email sent to me.

I am happy that on the second day of blogging again for Poverty Cafe I got a query from someone whom I have not not met for years. At least, someone read my entry. Rence is now with Commonwealth International based in London. Rence is making it big, quite a leap from those days going through the bureaucratic maze in the Solomons where you could easily get lost untangling web after web of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies. It was easy in those days to lose one's footing. The rules themselves would complicate things.

I am happy for Rence. Now he can focused his enormous talent and people's skills on development concerns. We hope we can work with him again someday. Perhaps not in the Solomons, but in more remote areas where they may be just starting create a state. Timor-Leste, perhaps?

A good thought to close the day and wish everybody good night.

Emotions, Emotions

There's this email sent us by a colleague from Habitat. It's about the answer made by the Filipina winner of Miss International. She was asked about what she thought the Philippines being known as a country of nannies. The answer brought tears to my eyes. I sent the email to all my close friends and associates.

Sounds corny but until early evening that answer still played strong in my mind, and I cried now and then. If you guys want to know her answer, email me at pestelos2003@yahoo.com. I'm too emotional now to even try to put it again to words.

Good night, guys. It's my second day of blogging.

Back Home

Well, back home. This is after dinner. I'm here in front of the laptop. This is a challenge. It's still early but I feel drowsy. Another tiring day at BLDF. Arnold and I are working out the database for the Habitat home partners here in Bohol. He has tinkered with the existing poverty database for two villages here where there are Habitat communities. Now it is easier for me to find out how each home partner ranks in terms of each of the 12 poverty core indicators.

Tomorrow, we will continue this tedious work. I have requested him to reflect the repayment status of each of the home partners. If we can link these to the poverty status, then we can systematically assist the households cope with problems that impact on their capacity to repay the house loan.

Let's see what happens tomorrow. Good night. I need to sleep.

We are back!

Looks like it is a good day to resume blogging. What can I say? My last entry was more than a year ago, in May last year! And to think that I was saying at that time that it had taken me a month to resume writing.

So many things to say. Where to start ... Here I am, at the BLDF office. I am actually waiting for Arnold to program something in my computer. It's almost 11 a.m. here in Tagbilaran City. We're in this new BLDF office.
Ok, Arnold, is finished. Must go back to work.

Will resume later.