For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS
Over the last four
to five decades, the problems regarding the relationship between development
and governance have revolved around this central issue: how to strengthen
capacities of local governments and
communities to jointly plan, implement, manage and maintain projects for the
benefit of the whole community but with focus on those who are in the
peripheries, namely, the landless farmers, subsistence fisher-folks, informal
settlers in urbanized areas, the unemployed, youth and women who need help in
articulating their needs, children in “difficult circumstances,” such as those caught
in the crossfire between officers of the law and the lawless, or children and
adults trapped in poverty and despair in all kinds of poverty landscapes.
As far as government
planning and documentation is concerned, NGOs have morphed into Civil Society
Organizations (CSOs), which now include faith-based organizations, academic
institutions, POs or People’s Organizations, Cooperatives and other entities
duly recognized by the Government as non-governmental. I will retain the
acronym NGOs in this column to refer to those entities which can be
differentiated from other CSOs by relative independence from religious and
political affiliations either covert or overt.
In Bohol, except for
those who may have lived incommunicado either by destiny or choice in remote,
isolated caves for decades, people know that most NGOs have become highly-motivated
partners of the Government in the implementation of projects, mostly
donor-assisted. Not necessarily out of free choice. They have been sand-bagged to
this role due to severe lack of funds needed for their own survival.
This is quite
understandable since everyone would like NGOs to survive. Their role is quite
important to address this crucial issue of forging strong links between local
communities and the local governments or any instrumentality, agency, office at
national and subnational level with a presence at city/municipal levels down to
the barangays and puroks or sub-barangays. Some international donors are more
inclined to approve projects which feature government-NGO partnership.
While this cozy
arrangement is beneficial to both the Government and the NGOs, something must
have died along the way, namely, in the journey sworn in by the latter to take
advantage of opportunities left behind by Government efforts. NGOs in recent
months seem to have become blind and deaf to such opportunities.
Our NGO, the Bohol
Local Development Foundation (BLDF), monitored news and editorial materials published
from 20 April 2014 to 19 March 2015 in three newspapers: Bohol Tribune, Bohol Chronicle and Bohol News
Today. The number of articles published totaled 117 for 44 weeks or an average
of 2 articles a week. Total length reached 2,118.4 column inches or an average
of 48 column inches a week. This is considered significant because the papers
surveyed consisted of three weeklies and one daily.
NGOs in Bohol have
not yet found their collective voice to sound the alarm on the proliferation of
illegal drugs in the province and the resulting harm done on the lives of hundreds of families both in rapidly-urbanizing municipalities and in
relatively remote areas; the rise in
drug-related crimes and the slow pace of prosecuting arrested drug
personalities; the profound damage done on our sense of community and our
public image by pictures shown in local papers about bloodied bodies of both
sexes riddled by bullets in busy
intersections, sometimes in broad daylight.
Perhaps these images of alleged drug pushers
shot dead in public places may have caused fear among the people, if not the
drug pushers or their syndicates, among ordinary men and women and the NGO community as well. Like the
people themselves, NGO officers and members may be afraid of being suspected by
either side, the police and the alleged drug pushers, to be a threat to their
respective safety and security. Hence, like other sectors, they resort to silence
and seemingly benign indifference as a response to the revolting drug scene.
Like others in the civil society sector, NGOs
are not expected to go after drug dealers and pushers and arrest them. That is
for the Government and the police to do. The most pressing issue is how to help
the hundreds of drug abuse victims, mostly young and coming from the poor, who need to go
through a systematic healing process, and who cannot be expected to shoulder
the expenses for counselling and medical services required.
What these drug abusers are going through is
more than a behavioral deviation issue. Their brain has been damaged by
repeated drug abuse. They need to be identified and given adequate
psycho-social services and treatment over a period of time. Parental
admonitions and insults hurled against them will not do the trick. Their
affliction is more than a behavioral problem.
For milder cases, those showing early
symptoms of the brain disease, counselling and work therapy will have to be
administered. This pre-treatment and treatment phases will require support from
all sectors and institutions. Fortunately for us in Bohol, the prestigious
Davao New Day Recovery Center (NDRC) in
Davao City, the owner and top psychologists and psychiatrists traced their
origin to Bohol and are willing to help us build both the drug rehabilitation
center and the mental health facility here in the province.
Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc.(BLDF)
has offered the use of 1.2 ha. in
Mangool, Baclayon for setting up the livelihood component of the project to
generate income and ensure that young people from poor families will be treated
at the facility. Also, for this purpose, a fund campaign will be launched in
April for a trust fund.
In addition, BLDF will make available the use
of 9,000 sq. m. property as site for the proposed structures that will be built
and run by NDRC Davao with private sector investments to ensure the commercial
viability of the facility.
NDRC Davao has committed to develop the
capability of NGOs and academic institutions in Bohol to undertake the pre-treatment
methodology and skills prior to referral and treatment. Equally important,
through Dr. Miriam Cue, who is originally from Bohol and a noted
practitioner-examiner, with international network of experts, specialists from
Colombo plan in Sri Lanka will be made available to train local facilitators
and volunteers for tasks during the initial phase of the project. It is
envisioned that through the series of training, local Drop-In Centers can be
identified and made operational initially with the support and assistance of
the Diocese of Tagbilaran City.
Fr. Francisco Estepa, president of Holy Name
University, committed support to the project through mobilization of volunteers
from Psychology and Social Sciences departments to assist throughout all the
phases of the project. Noted cultural guru, Lutgardo Labad and his Kasing Sining
group will present plays and other cultural shows to the various barangays to
provide vehicle for relevant messages related to drug abuse and will engage the
community in a lively interaction towards a better understanding of all forms
of addiction.
The Provincial Government is expected to be
part of a consultative and referral body for the coordination required with
local government units and government agencies for a comprehensive program to
be implemented in the proposed New Day Recovery Center Bohol.
Meanwhile, Fr. Val Pinlac has encouraged us to
prepare a proposal for the initial training and social preparation activities
needed to put in place the various teams needed to put in place an organization
for advocacy and fund raising and to ensure that there will be Drop In centers
to enable families to access information and services for drug abuse and mental
health problems among families relatively more disadvantaged than others.
The foregoing initiatives present NGOs in
Bohol opportunities to be part of the rehabilitation component of the war
against drug abuse in Bohol and, in the process, motivate them to play a bigger
role in this challenging task to help rehabilitate victims of drug abuse among
the poor. It is hoped that in playing this role to address a significant social
problem in Bohol, the NGOs will rediscover their strength which “lies in their
ability to act as bridges, facilitators, brokers and translators, linking
together institutions, interventions, capacities and levels of action that are
required to lever broader structural changes from discrete or small-scale
actions.” #blogsBLDF
NMP/19 March 2015/4.44 p.m.
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