Those were exciting times, the Project Compassion period (1973 to 1977) and the field-testing of the innovative "Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life)" approach (1978 to 1981). As we noted in the previous blog, there were two groups, the non-PACD staff who were assigned to be in field teams from disciplines other than community development; and the new staff from the academe, who came to work also with the pioneers in efforts to improve the old extension agent model in community development work.
We had a unique situation where relatively younger staff had the opportunity to work with those who pioneered community development as a government program in the 1950s.The joke among us in the younger groups was that in evenings when we could not sleep, we do not count the proverbial sheep: we count those from this old group who are still alive and, well, those who have passed away, and recall our best times together.
Now we will try to remember these development workers from the old days who had made the martial law period truly an exciting part of a lifetime for us.
Let us limit it to those who have passed away and what we remember most about them-
Bitoy Ramos
Alberto Ramos, overall coordinator for all three programs: Project Compassion; Green Revolution and Environmental Center of the Philippines. He was known with his nickname Bitoy. Quite at home with all sorts of people, including Governors, Mayors and other politicians of all stripes and colors. Bitoy could walk confidently among them - and talk his way out with his integrity as development worker intact.
His input on family planning during Family Ilaw Training (FIT) was easily the most attended despite competition with Janice de Belen's teleserye, Flor de Luna. He established rapport with the audience in ways that seemed to elude most of us in the first fifteen minutes of an input. His idea of success in his lecture on family planning was to be able to sustain attention and respect among his audience even during the part where village people would normally laugh - the display of various family planning devices and the admonition to the audience to exercise sound judgement in choosing the best method.
He was the only trainer who could bring the input to the point where he would demonstrate how to put the condom in a wooden phallus without anyone giggling or making a joke. He could bring the solemnity of the Mass to his input about the family planning using what we called as the supermarket approach, presenting the facts about all the methods and then letting the families decide according to what they think is best.
He could deliver this in an Ilaw ng Buhay training in Sto. Domingo, Albay, after a gruelling 6-hour Sakbayan ride from Lucena City with the same equanimity and conviction. We saw him did it in a variety of settings: among informal settlers in Lucena City in a place called Bagong Pagasa (New Hope), for example, and still achieved the same behavioral impact.
Bitoy was the coolest trainer alive in those days. Well, to illustrate: in a post-FIT activity in a barangay in Carmen, Bohol, the trainers were invited to attend a dance party as part of the fiesta celebration. In the house of the Ilaw Chapter officer, there was this drunken guy who was forcibly inviting everyone to dance with his Caliber .38 pistol. Everybody stood up except Bitoy. So the man went up to him and aimed his pistol at him. Bitoy calmly looked at him. He smiled while seated and sang the Ilaw ng Buhay song after saying he would sing rather than dance because he did not know how to dance.
The drunken guy laughed. So did all of those in the house. To be cool under fire, a trait development workers should have and cultivate for all seasons.
To be continued in the next blog.
We had a unique situation where relatively younger staff had the opportunity to work with those who pioneered community development as a government program in the 1950s.The joke among us in the younger groups was that in evenings when we could not sleep, we do not count the proverbial sheep: we count those from this old group who are still alive and, well, those who have passed away, and recall our best times together.
Now we will try to remember these development workers from the old days who had made the martial law period truly an exciting part of a lifetime for us.
Let us limit it to those who have passed away and what we remember most about them-
Bitoy Ramos
Alberto Ramos, overall coordinator for all three programs: Project Compassion; Green Revolution and Environmental Center of the Philippines. He was known with his nickname Bitoy. Quite at home with all sorts of people, including Governors, Mayors and other politicians of all stripes and colors. Bitoy could walk confidently among them - and talk his way out with his integrity as development worker intact.
His input on family planning during Family Ilaw Training (FIT) was easily the most attended despite competition with Janice de Belen's teleserye, Flor de Luna. He established rapport with the audience in ways that seemed to elude most of us in the first fifteen minutes of an input. His idea of success in his lecture on family planning was to be able to sustain attention and respect among his audience even during the part where village people would normally laugh - the display of various family planning devices and the admonition to the audience to exercise sound judgement in choosing the best method.
He was the only trainer who could bring the input to the point where he would demonstrate how to put the condom in a wooden phallus without anyone giggling or making a joke. He could bring the solemnity of the Mass to his input about the family planning using what we called as the supermarket approach, presenting the facts about all the methods and then letting the families decide according to what they think is best.
He could deliver this in an Ilaw ng Buhay training in Sto. Domingo, Albay, after a gruelling 6-hour Sakbayan ride from Lucena City with the same equanimity and conviction. We saw him did it in a variety of settings: among informal settlers in Lucena City in a place called Bagong Pagasa (New Hope), for example, and still achieved the same behavioral impact.
Bitoy was the coolest trainer alive in those days. Well, to illustrate: in a post-FIT activity in a barangay in Carmen, Bohol, the trainers were invited to attend a dance party as part of the fiesta celebration. In the house of the Ilaw Chapter officer, there was this drunken guy who was forcibly inviting everyone to dance with his Caliber .38 pistol. Everybody stood up except Bitoy. So the man went up to him and aimed his pistol at him. Bitoy calmly looked at him. He smiled while seated and sang the Ilaw ng Buhay song after saying he would sing rather than dance because he did not know how to dance.
The drunken guy laughed. So did all of those in the house. To be cool under fire, a trait development workers should have and cultivate for all seasons.
To be continued in the next blog.
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