Thursday, June 11, 2015

THE POWER OF HOPE

For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

The response to our appeal that we build a drug rehabilitation center cum mental health facility in Bohol to address the swelling ranks of drug abuse victims and those with aberrant behavior remains lukewarm if not downright tepid.  We remain hopeful, however, an overwhelming majority will see the merit of coming out from the dark where their fears and timidity have consigned them to passivity and inaction. This hope, which flickers with diminishing intensity from day to day, is fanned to renewed brightness each time we receive encouragement from people especially from those we have not met personally.

One such person is Mam Corazon Jamero Logarta, retired professor of Holy Name University, who emailed us 05 June to say she was a regular reader of this column and noted that “the envisioned establishment of a rehabilitation center here in our province has not taken off despite the fact the its plan has taxied for quite a long while already.”
The former psychology and philosophy teacher adds:  “ I cannot understand what is keeping the plan from being realized when the community has everything to gain and nothing to lose , sociologically, psychologically, and spiritually.”  

She then asks: “Is it possible that people, even if interested in the project, do not know where and how they can help? Or if the specifics have been drawn, is it possible that the interested groups or individuals need to be contacted, engaged, invited and /or interviewed?”

In response to this query, we would like to assure Mam Corazon Logarta that with our limited means at present, our NGO is trying everything possible to reach as many people possible with this appeal using mostly social media due to our limited resources.

Mam Logarta notes:  “It would be such a pity if the envisioned project would not be realized. If it was realized in Davao, in  Cebu and other provinces , why not in Bohol.? If there is anything that this 82 year old lady can do, let me know. through email or over a cup of coffee, here at home
(Garcia-Hernandez).”

The good-hearted professor actually came yesterday to Crescencia, a newly-opened meeting place in Baclayon, earlier than those who were scheduled to attend the continuing series of consultations among those who support the current advocacy to do something concrete about the drug abuse problem in Bohol. She opted for a one-on-one meeting since the others had not arrived yet and she had to go back to Garcia Hernandez.

We informed her that at this sixth month of our advocacy, after preparing and presenting to potential project partners a total of seven proposals, we have achieved the following milestones:

-an assurance from the New Day Recovery Center in Davao that they would invest in a similar facility in Bohol on a piece of land made available through us upon completion of a feasibility study that they themselves will conduct;

-willingness of the staff of It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center headed by Rene Francisco in Ozamiz City to come to Bohol and provide technical advice in setting up an Outreach and Drop-In Center for Drug Dependents;

-commitment by noted Psychiatrist Miriam Cue of NDRC Davao and the Professional Regulatory Commission to conduct training and/or facilitate the training of those who will be involved in pre-treatment and treatment services for community facilitators and technical staff with assistance from the Colombo Plan Drug Assistance Program based in Sri Lanka;

-commitment of Fr. Jimbo Saco, newly-installed parish priest of Maribojoc, to study how a Drop-In Center can be established and operated in his parish;

-willingness of several officers/officials of the Municipality of Baclayon to support a program on livelihood for out-of-school youth as part of a drug rehabilitation project;

-acceptance by retired Dean Carrie Tharan of Miriam College of her nomination as member of the Board of Trustees of BLDF to assume as Chair of the Advocacy and Fund Raising Committee;

-organization of several support groups to identify target contributors to the fund drive and to carry out activities in support of the Youth Livelihood Assistance Project;

-cash donations from Ian and Sally Robinson, Vicky Carias Goodall, and Ingrid Schoof  to kick off the fund campaign in a network of friends most whom I have not met personally; and

-commitment of former classmates at the Quezon Provincial High School to sell copies of the 2nd edition of the book, Old Warrior and Other Poems, to support BLDF and its advocacy for Youth Livelihood and the building of Outreach and Drop-in Centers for Drug Dependents in Bohol.

I admit these so-called milestones do not amount to anything near to helping us achieve the ultimate goal of having drop-in centers and a drug rehabilitation center cum mental health facility for a province of 1.2 million people.  They are however significant in a situation where there has been no specific and concrete initiative before.

My close friends both inside or outside Facebook often ask what gives me hope that we will achieve this almost impossible goal of building these facilities in Bohol given the general apathy of the public themselves and apparently their leaders in faith-based organizations;  in the schools where their children spend most of their time in a day;  the offices whose companies will be the first to suffer should there be a breakdown of the social order,  in case the number of brain-damaged individuals exceeds those with normal and heathy brains; the governance mechanisms and community structures which will be prevented from functioning properly due to the breakdown of law and order and, more importantly, the collapse of moral authority within the family and the local institutions.

Why do I still nourish hope in the face of this seemingly formidable wall that separates our advocacy and the events of everyday life with different priorities identified by the Government and the Church which seem to exclude the need to address the drug menace in our midst?

I still hope that the forces of goodness will triumph over evil, that a cause powered by hope, love and faith will win the hearts and minds of the people as shown by the triumph of previous advocacies we have been involved in through the years in this province we all profess to love forever and ever:

-the peace and development efforts carried out in this province by the simple distribution of seeds, water and sanitary toilets, the provision of roads and schools to remote areas made possible by invisible hands toiling in the night to plan details and by the extension agents of various disciplines reaching out to people unnoticed and unrecognized by those in power who appropriate their accomplishments among the people as their own;

-the elimination or at best, the massive reduction of child malnutrition, infant deaths, school drop-out rates, illiteracy and the sheer despair common among the young in remote villages which preoccupied development workers in an earlier age carried out unnoticed by the hierarchy of self-promotion and bureaucratic intrigues;

-the elimination of distrust and anger on the part of those who have been wronged by the corrupt ways of those who are supposed to lead them by the simple demonstration of thoughtfulness and caring during moments of profound anguish and sorrow done by anonymous field workers of various creeds in heroic efforts to bring a sense of social justice to victims of injustice and inequality fostered by divisive political forces;

-the simple gestures of kindness among neighbors extended to those most in need and encouraged by hundreds of development workers across agencies and faiths often without the knowledge of the bureaucrats who rule over them with archaic rules and standards.

As long as these disparate remnants of enlightened civilization exist in small settlements and clusters of organized living to inspire families and local communities to strive and struggle for a better life, then there is hope we can still bring such streams and rivers and seas of our humanity back to what we call the vast ocean of our human struggle for a better life in Bohol.

Now I rest my case. #newdaybohol  

NMP/11 June 2015/6.03 p.m.

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