For more than 40 years, our involvement with NGOs has been guided by the principle and bias of working closely with local governments. We decided on this strategy at a time in the late 1970s when it was not fashionable for NGOs to work with government. In fact, NGOs such as COPE in Cebu and others even if they were not organized by the left, adhered to what they called "No linkage with Government policy." In those days, the surest way to lose credibility was for an NGO to be known as DJANGO, an entity working as close partner of Government.
For our part, we were sandbagged into embracing an approach in close partnership with Government due to the bias imposed by the background of groups represented in the "Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life)" program in the late 70s. Those who came from the pioneering Presidential Assistant for Community Development (PACD) had a bias for working with local governments on account of the rationale for the creation of PACD itself, which is to strengthen local government capacities to extend basic services from the center to the periphery.
Those who came to the organization from the various technical disciplines (environment; agriculture; social services; health and education) had a profound respect for the role of technical departments as source of information and expertise vital to community development work.
The few who came from the left and for one reason or another surfaced from the underground to join the NGO (or were ordered to join it by the Military, nobody knows!) had to be part of the partnership approach either as a necessity or were just plain sick and tired of living life on the run.
To the credit of everyone in the organization, from the early days to the present BLDF, what was known informally as the "jawbone approach" (upper jaw - government; lower jaw - community) gained wide acceptance by both government agencies and NGOs. The theory and practice of the this collaborative approach became documented in case studies and other researches and this contributed to getting more support from international donor agencies looking for ways to bring services to the very doorstep of the target family.
I recall doing my dissertation for my Masters degree in management using the collaborative framework as experienced by our NGO from the pilot stage to advocacy and then institutionalization with the setting up of the Ilaw International Center as resource center for the replication of the approach. While the approach became widely accepted, however, this support from the Government and donors did not translate into ensuring the sustainability of our NGO. Our innovations in both the process and the approach to community development have been achieved with great financial sacrifice on the part of those who compose the old Ilaw ng Buhay organization and the present Bohol Local Development Foundation.
The cost of developing, for instance, the pro-poor targeting system and software known as PDMS has been paid for through the sacrifices of those who have remained with our NGO involvement through the past three decades.
We continue to be burdened with survival blues. Here is truly a crossroad - to survive or just perish.
For our part, we were sandbagged into embracing an approach in close partnership with Government due to the bias imposed by the background of groups represented in the "Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life)" program in the late 70s. Those who came from the pioneering Presidential Assistant for Community Development (PACD) had a bias for working with local governments on account of the rationale for the creation of PACD itself, which is to strengthen local government capacities to extend basic services from the center to the periphery.
Those who came to the organization from the various technical disciplines (environment; agriculture; social services; health and education) had a profound respect for the role of technical departments as source of information and expertise vital to community development work.
The few who came from the left and for one reason or another surfaced from the underground to join the NGO (or were ordered to join it by the Military, nobody knows!) had to be part of the partnership approach either as a necessity or were just plain sick and tired of living life on the run.
To the credit of everyone in the organization, from the early days to the present BLDF, what was known informally as the "jawbone approach" (upper jaw - government; lower jaw - community) gained wide acceptance by both government agencies and NGOs. The theory and practice of the this collaborative approach became documented in case studies and other researches and this contributed to getting more support from international donor agencies looking for ways to bring services to the very doorstep of the target family.
I recall doing my dissertation for my Masters degree in management using the collaborative framework as experienced by our NGO from the pilot stage to advocacy and then institutionalization with the setting up of the Ilaw International Center as resource center for the replication of the approach. While the approach became widely accepted, however, this support from the Government and donors did not translate into ensuring the sustainability of our NGO. Our innovations in both the process and the approach to community development have been achieved with great financial sacrifice on the part of those who compose the old Ilaw ng Buhay organization and the present Bohol Local Development Foundation.
The cost of developing, for instance, the pro-poor targeting system and software known as PDMS has been paid for through the sacrifices of those who have remained with our NGO involvement through the past three decades.
We continue to be burdened with survival blues. Here is truly a crossroad - to survive or just perish.
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