Friday, July 10, 2015

SOME REFLECTIONS ON TBTK HOMECOMING

For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Boholanos from various parts of the world have been arriving in the province for their TBTK (Tigum Bol-anon sa Tibuok Kalibutan) Global Homecoming held every three years for the past 15 years. 

This year, culminating activities scheduled 24 to 27 July, will include, as in previous years, street dancing, arts exhibit, trade exposition, beauty pageant and for this year back-to-back performances featuring this year’s international hall of famer Loboc Children’s Choir and the recent Asia Got Talent champion, the phenomenal El Gamma Penumbra from Batangas province.

It is easy to lose ourselves in revelries and the thrills of the Sandugo Festival, but it is also worth reflecting about Bohol as the place of our hometowns and the barangays and families which nurtured us in our earlier years before we have known other places and cultures. I am sure Boholanos feel intensely this pull of place in their psyche not only during TBTK days but on occasions when they are far away from the land of their birth.

It will be interesting to do a focus group or a survey to find out what exactly the home-comers are thinking about when they visit their folks and the places they have not visited for three years or more. Lost in the embrace of their kin and friends, in the intensity of planned activities at community and the broader environment, such as the provincial, city or municipal level, they may take for granted the fast-paced urbanization trend which has taken place and its impact on the quality of life of people in the city, municipality and the local community.

If all they do is go to the big malls in the city and visit resorts in Panglao and Anda, they will probably think that indeed the Boholanos have risen from the rubbles caused by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake and are now on the road to full recovery. And they may be right if they will see the efforts exerted in the building of roads and bridges, churches and schools and, more importantly, in the rebuilding of totally damaged houses and moving earthquake victims from tents to either temporary or permanent houses. If expectations are not high at all, any perceptible change will appear as a monumental achievement.

We may still come to the objective view that Tagbilaran City and the rapidly-urbanizing municipalities, which are mostly those with seaports, seem to perform better than others in terms of post-quake rehabilitation and rebuilding and in fast-tracking local economic growth. Guided with sound political governance, those Local Government Units with relatively more resources will most likely outpace others in both rebuilding and development efforts.

Urbanization may create jobs, improve delivery of services and modernize public infrastructure, but it also provides a fertile breeding ground for modern-day problems such as drug addiction, alcoholism and crimes not only against property but also against persons at a rate unheard of several decades ago.  The bad effects of these negative social problems will not escape the notice of discerning balikbayans when they go and visit their hometowns and go around the only city in the province. They will come to hear these from their relatives, friends and media or read about it in Bohol’s several weeklies and one daily paper.

The fact is that the resiliency of Boholano culture has been under siege in recent years from organized illegal drug trade and the usual enticements to pleasures associated with urbanized culture, such as the easy life of cheap thrills on the fast lane, all alien to what we have come to be taught and cherished as our way of life in this province.

When I first set foot in Bohol thirty years ago to establish and manage a UNICEF-funded international training center on community development, I was attracted to the peaceful life on the islands, to the simple ways of its people. I still remember a souvenir shop owner telling our guests to just leave the payment for some items with their Boholano neighbor who would surely come home for the fiesta.

I remember our staff in the old Ilaw International Center whose families I came to know, from the utility to the administrative and training staff and saw first-hand their industriousness, honesty and close family ties. I remember those times when I could walk in to do meditation in small chapels left open all day and night in remote barangays.

I remember when I could not go home to Quezon for the Christmas holidays because our organization had no funds to pay for our plane tickets and my neighbors in Bool would take turns to give me food for an entire week. I remember simple acts of kindness and thoughtfulness of ordinary folks in mountain and coastal villages where we used to eat and sleep and work for projects funded by external donors.

I remember my Annus horribilis or horrible year, 1987, when my Boholano friends accompanied me to the Jesuit Retreat House in Cebu so I could spend ten days with the late Fr. Cavan on a one-on-one spiritual retreat, faced personal tragedies courageously and proceed to mend my messy life.  My friends were not surprised at all when I chose Bohol as the place where I would go back to my faith and rebuild a life broken in so many ways by having too many Messiahs on my Cross!

Now I die a little when I recall these things and suffer from day to day in recent years in experiencing insensitivity and rudeness on the part of young people doing immersion work in communities. Rather than listen to people, their needs and aspirations, these students go their merry ways doing selfies and playing their music foreign to the ears of local folks.

Some high school students we were helping to be provided bikes to make it easy for them to go to school would sneak into the stock room right on our front yard to steal spare parts. I recall giving cash to a school drop-out to buy paint needed for the odd jobs we had hired him for so he could earn money, have some savings and eventually go back to school. He disappeared with the money on his first day on the job!

In projects I was involved in since my retirement from UNDP since December 2001, I now look back and say that settling disputes among project implementors, clarifying misinformation with project partners and getting rid of intrigues and dealing with backbiters or other shady characters who have come to infest projects, falling under what is termed HBO or Human Behavior in Organization in management courses, took large chunks of management time compared to that spent on technical matters. I suppose  this is because projects do not happen in a vacuum and, hence, they are not immune from corrosive values that reflect a decaying social order.

All these indicate an erosion of moral values on our part as project planners and implementers and on the part of those we have been trying to liberate from the constraints brought about by deprivation and poverty. I do not know which incidents may be more convincing to home-comers during these TBTK days to make them re-think their ways in making their brief visit more memorable – by reflecting on how they can contribute more meaningfully in helping transform Bohol more in conformity with the values their ancestors sacrificed their lives for to protect a way of life that will resist negative values brought by modern-day urbanization.
But it will not do harm if we cite recent statistics released by the government’s lead anti-drug law enforcement agency, PDEA or the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.  PDEA is the implementing arm of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), the policy-making and strategy-formulating body in the planning and formulation of policies and programs on drug prevention and control.  PDEA and DDB are both under the supervision of the Office of the President.
PDEA itself is the source of information that 876 (76%) barangays of the total 1,109 barangays in Bohol are affected by illegal drugs. Some credible sources say more than 50%  of  the crimes reported in the province are drug-related. Despite these alarming statistics, PDEA classifies Bohol as “moderately” affected by illegal drugs which is quite alarming to us and our colleagues in media, including Columnist Romy Teruel, for example, whose views I respect particularly on peace and order matters to which he invested a lot of time and other resources when we were together in the Provincial Government.
As part of efforts to convince political leaders and technocrats in Government that the drug menace in Bohol is quite alarming and require a decisive and comprehensive respone, I reprint here a list of headlines which we compiled for several months until the last week of May and published in this column in the 24 to 30 May issue of the Bohol Tribune:
-Raids on suspected sources of drugs resulted not only in the confiscation of shabu and other drugs, but also “yielded loose guns, including high powered , and even live grenades.”
-Seventy-one barangays have been considered with serious drug problem which means they have “at least one drug laboratory, den or resort or a shabu tyangge,” according to the police.
-Pension houses are suspected as distribution points for illegal drugs.
-Stolen motorbikes were found in a hideout of suspected drug pushers.
-A former vice mayor and a former vice governor were among those arrested in police operations against illegal drug trade and use.
-Former barangay captain nabbed for drugs.
-Drug suspect arrested for the murder of a municipal councilor.
-Illegal drugs are reportedly sold in school campuses, particularly during night-time.
-A 63-year old woman was arrested for being drug courier.
-Drug suspect fired at arresting policemen.
-Illegal drugs cited as reason for series of carnapping in the city.
-Minor arrested for illegal drugs and possession of M16 bullets.
-More women sell shabu.
-Drug addict hangs self in a tree.
-A retired cop nabbed in drug raid.
-Rape-slay filed against estranged boyfriend, who is a drug abuser.
-Drug raids continue during Holy Week.
-Drug-linked shooting mars barangay fiesta.
-Illegal trade drugs sold on-line.
-Woman nabbed while buying illegal drugs.
-Tricycle passenger arrested for wanting to pay driver with shabu.
-Police blamed illegal drugs for alarming rise of rape cases in the province.
-203 drug cases filed in court in recent months.
-Ex-convict arrested for having shabu .
-Businessmen dare police to arrest drug lords, not only small fries.
-Alleged lady drug pusher arrested and reported to be contacting top government officials to get protection.
We have compiled clippings of the same nature after this period until last week. Given these headlines, how can PDEA classify Bohol as moderately affected by the illegal drug trade? Perhaps  it is our friends from TBTK who will find it sensible and practical to do something about the drug menace in our midst and, in the process, help us recreate the Bohol Republic of our dreams. Well, perhaps. #TBTKbohol  


NMP/10Jul2015/9.56 a.m. 

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