Bibo Bohol

For almost a week, prior to my trip here to Bangkok, I was preoccupied with Bibo Bohol. It was quite an intense experience from 25 November, when I had the trip to Bilar, to 03 December when I participated in a planning workshop at the Governor's Mansion in Tagbilaran City. I reflected on this experience 05 December on my trip to Bangkok on this Cathay Pacific flight via Hongkong.

Gardy Labad invited me to present the LPRAP (Local Poverty Reduction Action Plan) software being developed for the past two years by our Foundation, in collaboration with the Provincial Planning and Development Office. I had to present the context first before showing how the software works. After all, the software is just a tool to process the data from the household poverty surveys. We talked about the program framework on poverty reduction; the overview of the program based on the framework; the linkage of the poverty reduction program to peace and development efforts; the restructuring of the provincial government based on this new thrust; and the reallignment of the annual and medium-term development plans consistent with the poverty focus at policy level.

As always, Bea Zobel quickly responded to this development. I think she saw quite clearly that Bibo Bohol is part of the provincial development agenda. It is not something cooked up as a stand-alone initiative by the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and the local cultural and arts council. Its emphasis on what it calls the sunrise creative industries can be a potent intervention against poverty in Bohol. Heritage-based social enterprises and marketable eco-tourism sites can benefit directly Bohol households, 47.3% of whom are still below the poverty line.

I had to fly to Manila on from Bohol to work with Gardy Labad, Ino Manalo and Bea on a slide presentation on Bibo Bohol. The slides were critiqued by marketing experts from Ayala Foundation.

(Note: I am doing this on the run. I have to attend a presentation by the SGS group here at the Habitat regional office. Will get back to this as soon as possible).

3.00 p.m. It was a very interesting presentation by Robert Jourdain, assistant vice president of SGS about Habitat Thailand. SGS has been hired by Habitat for Humanity International Asia Pacific to assess selected affiliates in several countries (Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and India) in terms of global best practices of NGOs. It is an NGO benchmarking exercise. His findings can shed light on current problems and, hopefully, the national organization and the affiliates can move on from there to implement measures to improve performance.

Now back to Bibo Bohol. The slide presentation was seen and commented on and the following day, I joined Gardy and Ino and Bea to work on the revisions. It was a nerve-wracking exercise. Finally, thirty five minutes before the scheduled presenation at 10, we moved on to the Globe building in Mandaluyong.

It was like presenting a research study before a panel. Ino presented the revised slide presentation. Bea and Gardy provided inputs and answered questions. The Globe panel was cautious about making making cash commitments, but on the whole they saw the merits of participating in the Bibo Bohol program.

All of us were happy about the result. Bea treated us at the Shang Restaurant at the Shangrila, where Monette Flores joined us. Monette has had a remarkable track record developing eco-tourism sites and her expertise will be valuable for Bibo Bohol. She practically walked us through the process of developing such sites. Bea suggested we go to Calatagan, Batangas the following and continue our meeting there so we could take pictures of her bahay kubo (native house) that I could show to the architect who would design local houses for us in our place in Laya.

That trip is a story in itself. It is apparent that as we tackled issues related to Bibo Bohol and some possible projects, we were also learning details about our personal lives. In brief, we were actually engaged in team building efforts.

In the end, I can say, Bea's vision for Bohol hasbecome ours too.