Lesson from Comilla, Bangladesh

In November,1982, I came to Bohol because UNICEF had approved a project concept we submitted to establish a training center modelled after the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) in Comilla. 

BARD used to be known as the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development founded in 1959  by Dr. Hameed Acktar Khan, a noted civil servant who resigned from the service to found a training center in Comilla dedicated to the uplift of the poor, namely, farmers and pedicab drivers. 

When Bangladesh emerged as a new nation in 1971, the center was named after it. 

My visit to the place to take a rural development course under UNICEF sponsorship came about almost ten years after the center got its new name. The name was new, Dr. Khan chose to go to the other half of the country which became Pakistan, but BARD remained faithful to its original mission to try new community development approaches which emphasized organizing the poor and letting them pay for the skills training that they would receive from the center. 

I remember a story told about Dr. Khan in our class. He resigned from a promising career in public service to be among the poor in Comilla preaching self reliance as a philosophy and a way of life to liberate them from the constraints of underdevelopment. 

He talked tirelessly among the pedicab drivers until they agreed to form a cooperative. At each meeting, he would make each participant shell out 1 taka (like 1 centavo) and the contributions grew meeting after meeting until the cooperative had a sizable fund to spend. 

He did the same with farmers who contributed 1 taka each per meeting until they had a fund to run their cooperatives. 

Then Dr. Khan did something unthinkable during those times: he invited the government extension workers based in the capital, Dacca, to travel all the way to Comilla and the poor people’s cooperatives would pay for their travel, accommodation, food and daily allowance. 

The more the extension workers came , the more the training courses grew in attendance. And the more takas were collected to augment the fund of each cooperative.

The idea for a training center grew out of this experience with courses handled by government workers and funded by people’s cooperatives. In 1982, when I took the rural development course, the lesson that training participant would learn from BARD was: “Nothing is given free here; pay for everything.”

I think that was the secret why BARD has survived from 1959 to this day. It celebrated its 50^th year in 2009 at which time it had trained more than a million people not only from Bangladesh but from other countries. 

Unfortunately, however, the Ilaw International Center (IIC) built with UNICEF assistance in Bool, Bohol in 1982 as a clone, as it were, of BARD, survived only for 10 years, from 1982 to 1992.

It probably forgot the lesson learned from Comilla, Bangladesh.

What NGOs Can Learn from BRAC

When I think of NGOs and their creative (and sometimes non-creative ways) they adopt to survive, I usually
think of BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) which I came know about in 1982 when I took a  rural development course with a UNICEF grant at the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development.

Founded in 1972, the BRAC is considered by the UN as the world's largest NGO. It employs 120,000 people, most of them women. BRAC has projects in all 64 districts of Bangladesh where it has 7 million microfinance group members, 37,500 non-formal primary schools and more than 70,000 health voluntees.  With microfinance and education programs reaching 9 countries in Asia and Africa, its programs reach more than 110 million people!

When I first came to know BRAC in 1982, I was struck by its strategy. I remember being surprised by the fact that the NGO owns and manages a commercial printing press and uses the profit to fund its projects. I remember being skeptical about it being all too familiar with NGO experiences that would end up with plenty of lessons but the capital is gone and the NGO and its members buried in debts.

We used to ascribe each failed business to what was called in my time as "NGO mentality." It means the tendency not to think of commerical activities at all; just focus on service delivery funded by others, such as donors and the Government. It took us three decades to realize that this mentality was the one which pushed us to this critical stage where most NGOs in the world face extinction. We must first be able to fight off this mind-set of always depending on grants to be able to survive.

That was why BRAC came to my mind as I reflected on the sad state of the NGO community at this time in Bohol. To survive, they have allowed their organizations to die in spectacular fashion in a grand surrender of their noble causes to the convenience of working with parties or entities whose goals may not exactly advance their own.

Let us learn from the inspiring BRAC story which is today 80% self-funded and has commercial enterprises, i.e. a dairy and food project, handicraft stores, BRAC salt, etc. to support their mammoth operations and remain faithful to its commitment to organize the poor and based on the understanding of their needs, find "practical ways  to increase their access to resources, support their entrepreneurship and empower them to become agents of change." (Quoted portion from Wikipedia).

To my NGO colleagues, it may be time to consider the BRAC way if we have to fight off being extinct in this new exciting age of entrepreneurship.

Development NGOs are Getting Extinct

The term CSOs or Civil Society Organizations lumps together NGOs, academic institutions, professional associations, cooperatives, federations, foundations. We learned the other day from the orientation given by the Department of Information and Local Government that the National Government would like CSOs to be in partnership with LGUs in carrying out development plans, programs and projects.

CSOs, particularly NGOs, have been in such partnership mode for the last three decades starting at the time when local development councils were formed at various levels and something like 30% of their membership will have to be allocated to representatives from the NGOs. The DILG staff during the orientation was focused understandably on discussing their programs and getting information from the CSOs about their organizational profiles and how best they could be partners in these programs.

Perhaps in the future DILG or the local government itself can focus specifically on the situation of the NGOs as development partners of the Government and see how the latter can help NGOs survive the hard times, which have been affecting them for almost two decades. During the orientation, Dr. Gloria Casabal of the University of Bohol Foundation raised the issue of resources as critical factor if we have to sustain NGO participation in government programs. I guess it is not an urgent problem with the rest of the CSOs such as professional associations and academic institutions.

It is interesting how the DILG focal point on CSOs replied to this concern. She said NGOs will always find the resources and that, in fact, Dr. Casabal is among the richest in Bohol and her family owns a University.
The matter was not pursued by DILG nor by the NGO representatives in the meeting. Again, this is understandable because the orientation was focused more on government programs rather than on listening to what NGOs have to say about their problems.

The situation is that in Bohol like in the other places, the NGOs have become a dying institution, always gasping for breath, bravely fighting for survival in a grant-weary environment. Globally, NGOs which depend  exclusively on grants to sustain their operations, are getting extinct. In Bohol, how many of the 35 or so NGOs listed as members of the Bohol Association of NGOs (BANGON) some two decades ago are still around? And how about BANGON itself, supposed to be the coalition of NGOs mutually assisting each other to enhance further their role in development?

In recent years, the NGOs have to compete against each other to get donor assistance. They have to compete with the rest of the CSOs in fact to get noticed by donors and their projects funded. They find themselves competing even with the LGUs to get funding from donors. At one point, some NGOs claim, they had to compete against BANGON itself because the association had to raise funds to survive, too.

Most donors have increased the required counterparting from partners in the procurement of supplies and equipment, something like 20%. In one case, a donor has specified that an NGO should have 80% available funds that can be used for the project. Some donors have adopted the practice of requiring that beneficiary organizations spend first and the expenses reimbursed later which can take months. Donors in recent years  have become too exacting in their requirements for NGOs to be extended funding support. 

There has been no honest-to-goodness attempt to really assess the situation of the NGOs on the part of any Government agency or among the NGOs themselves. If we believe that NGOs have still a vital part to play in local development, we must first study a trend which has been going on for some time and assist them with much-needed resources to survive. Unfortunately, donors and their government counterparts always insist on sustainability as precondition for assistance rather than as outcome of a well-planned program designed to make NGOs achieve sustainability in their operations.

NGOs must take this problem by the horn and act decisively to avoid getting extinct in the near future.

A Pleasant Experience at SSS

My wife, Jojie, and I went to the SSS office in Tagbilaran City the other day and had a pleasant experience there in trying to find out what happened to the ID I applied for in 2007, five years ago.

I was surprised to find they had moved to a different location, more spacious this time. The security guard who met us at the door, a young man in his thirties, escorted us to a nearby table and offered us chairs. I noticed there were around twenty people sitting in the air-conditioned hall. Quite a change from the crowded, hot office we visited before in another location.

The receptionist (not sure if this is his title) motioned to us to get nearer. He was wearing a tie and dark jacket. Upon learning about what we wanted, he pointed to the person on the other side of the room. The security guard accompanied us there. The lady in-charge was smiling while listening to us. She did not give us the impression we were bringing something for her to do - as in the days of old.

She went to a filing cabinet and then checked her computer and said I had to update information on their file so my pension could be resumed; the monthly payment was stopped in September because my file had to be updated. On my application for ID, she apologized that no notice was given to us. The reason for the five-year delay was that the machine was out of order for quite some time.

She made me fill up some forms. We had to go back to the friendly security guard because he had a table there which we could use. Jojie helped me with the forms and a lady staff, who looked quite young, assisted also by clarifying each information required.

We went back to the the lady in-charge of ID applications and she signed something and showed us where to go next for the thumb prints (digital!) and the picture taking. We sat there beside two young ladies also waiting for their turn. The friendly security guard approached us and requested the two ladies to first accomplish the required forms before they could take the queue, then he instructed me to enter the room.

A young lady who looked like a student intern or quite young staff got our forms and then encoded the information, got my thumbmarks and took my pictures. She corrected something on my accomplished form.

Back again to the receptionist wearing a tie and handed him the accomplished form. He tore a stub from it and told us two things: a) we will get our pension which was withheld for four months plus a bonus amounting to a month; and b) the ID will be mailed to me and I will get it in 6 months' time, confirming what the lady at the photo section had told us.

On our way out, the friendly security guard was there smiling at us and opening the door for a senior citizen who had transacted business with an important government office. I looked at my watch and told Jojie: "Wow, in 45 minutes, we finished our business with SSS."

SSS guys, much thanks for a pleasant experience. Keep on with the good work. Continue make us believe our country can be great again with the good deeds of government officers like you.

Comment from Alex Romero, US-based Photographer

Note: Have just received a comment from Alex (nickname for Renato) Romero, a friend from the good old days in UP Los Banos. He is now based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He transformed himself as an accomplished professional photographer. I have suggested to him to do photo shoot in Bohol, probably with focus on how families and local communities use their own skills and assets to cope with the day-to-day challenge to meet basic needs and aspirations.
 
On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Renato Romero <alexrom1@me.com> wrote:
Nestor,

The blog site is a better way to show ideas and progress of your work versus Facebook. Reaching back into your past musings provide a historical legacy.

Keep doing good works, it is gratifying for you, surely and that it attracts supporters so that more can be done by one man alone.

My former blogsite with photographs was posterous.com but was bought out by twitter and I also managed to erase a good portion of it by mistake. I should do that again too.

I have a new site for pictures alone as many customers here have asked to see more... alexromero.photoshelter.com 

This week, one Boholanon - Rico Ancog, who was supported as a scholar in UPLB by the Peace Corps Alumni for Philippine Development ( PCAFPD) and now a PHD and Professor at UPLB will be presenting a paper in New York City on a study he did in Mindoro. I have known Rico since his undergrad days and continue to have beer with him whenever I am there.

In Dec, I may be back and stay longer, maybe I can make time to do a pictorial in Bohol. Take care....

Comment from Dr. Charles Kick on the PPP

Note: Dr. Charles Kick, noted community development and natural resource management consultant, has emailed his comment to my post on PPP. Dr. Kick has a long track record as development professional in the Pacific, including working as Regional Advisor for UN-ESCAP. I will reproduce here his comment as another post while we work on having real-time comments posted on our blogspot.

Thanks, Nes.

It's a good idea.

But for me, I comment where I do not need to sign up, etc.

In keeping with that, here is my note on "PPP":

"PPP" has been around a long, long, time--even though it was not called PPP.  In the RP, the health insurance  coops and coop-run municipal markets are examples of public-private partnerships that started more than twenty years ago.

Moreover, PPP is an overly marketed concept.  That is not to say that it is wrong, merely that there is too often more marketing (sound bites) than substance. It is important to be aware of this because PPP has quite significant risks.

I, for one, am wary about PPP because democracy works when people are involved.  I have read of some of PPP's extremes (almost all of a city's services--including its courts--out-sourced) and winced:  There isn't much room for the people to be involved with such extensive contracts.  When people have less need to be involved, it becomes easier for society to get on track for a return to the paternalistic-monarchial forms of government-and feudalism.

I am also wary because PPP is marketed from the top--by people with an interest in it being adapted.  This makes it hard for decision-makers to get unbiased, objective, assessments.

Charles

More on the PPP (Public-Private Partnership)

Monday. 5.59 a.m. Still thinking about the PPP. I think it's really the way out for the Local Government Units to improve their delivery of services. It can solve perennial problems of lack of funding and staff for projects; lack of motivation to increase access to services; the prevalence of hands-out mentality or over-dependence of LGUs on tax revenues, which are more often than not inadequate to match the needs of a rapidly expanding constituency.

I think this PPP strategy is worth trying. The PPP expert, Atty. Alberto Agra, who did the orientation and write-shop last week, was quite emphatic about it: PPP could add value for money in the exercise of local governance.

It is a good thing that the Department of Interior and Local Government is on top of this initiative. That means, the LGUs will get the message PPP is really the way to go. I noticed the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) was also present, indicating this is top priority of the national government. CIDA's Local Governance Strengthening Project for Local Economic Development (LGSP-LED) made available the expert services of Atty. Agra.

Atty. Agra himself said that while the PPP was launched as a national initiative, it is taking quite a while to figure out how to implement it. It will require a lot of things to be put in place: a resource team to carry on with the advocacy and provision of technical assistance to have a relevant and useful PPP Code for the guidance of everybody; a assets assessment per LGU to determine which services can lend themselves to any of the PPP modalities; a regulatory authority to make sure about transparency in business transactions; and the conduct of feasibility studies to ensure viability and sustainability of proposed projects.

Over the years, however, similar initiatives have been put forward by donors and the national government. This is not the first time that improving economic governance at local level will be tried. Perhaps the first thing to do is to assess how the PPP strategy differs from all these approaches; how an inter-agency resource team can work effectively with the LGUs in putting in place a multi-sectoral strategy; and what is the best configuration for the PPP knowing the usual resource constraints at the level of individual LGUs. Will an inter-LGU cluster, like the Bohol Integrated Area Development, be more suited for the kind of projects that can be supported through the PPP?

The audience at the Atty. Agra's orientation was quite excited about the fact PPP could be used to improve the management of prisons, hospitals, and even schools.

PPP is an initiative worth trying seriously both as a poverty reduction measure and a fresh stab at making local governments more effective in the delivery of services to their constituency.

NMP/08 Oct 2012

Some Memories from the Old Quezon High

Since last Tuesday, 02 October, our Alma Mater, the Quezon National High School (formerly Quezon Provincial High School) in Lucena City has been celebrating its 110th founding anniversary. We received a week ago an invitation to attend this event from retired Gen. Charlemagne Alejandrino Class 69, president of the alumni association and chair of the Executive Committee for the celebration and the Grand Alumni Homecoming. The activity will end today with the Alumni Grand Ball which will also feature the giving of Dangal ng Quezon High Awards.

In a letter accompanying the invitation, the Chair informed us that I was one of those selected as recipients of the Dangal ng Quezon High Award. I have thanked the Chair and the selection committee for this honor and also expressed regret that I could not be present to receive the award on account of previous commitment. I indicated in the letter my wish that a close friend and classmate, Romeo "Butch" Gonzales, receive the award on my behalf.


As a member of Class 1958 of what was then QPHS, I graduated from the school 54 years ago. Since I woke up this Saturday morning, I have been trying to run through my mind some key milestones of my four-year stay in this school.

Some notes:

-Probably like other alumni, I remember the teachers who influenced us the most, not only in their handling of the subjects assigned to them, but the examples they showed in terms of values that a school system is supposed to reenforce in the young lives under their care: infinite patience and spiritiual values (Miss Unson); discipline in class (Ms. Abcede, Ms. Aglibut, Ms. Villanueva); strength of character (Ms. Mercedes Castro);
good grooming and pleasant personality (Ms. Lavarez, Ms. Buenaventuara).

-We were also molded by the interactions with diverse personalities inside and outside the classroom: motherly/sisterly concern and always ready with advice and assistance (Mil, Isa ); gentle demeanor and always with a smile (Brenda, Argee); thespian skills and life-of-the-party approach (Nini, Norma, Butch); debonair looks, playboy type (Nilo, Fili); senatorial look (Jovito); business-like manners and genius in math and geometry (Satur); generous ways (Abe, Ben); snob appeal (Carol); and so on.

-Some real-life experiences taught us valuable lessons for future use: my throwing stones that broke windows in our physics class which resulted in my two-week suspension from classes; my winning a place in a national competition for features writing to atone somewhat for my earlier sin; intense mentoring by the school paper adviser to prepare us for editorship; assignment as auxiliary of the Legion of Mary to a tough neighborhood in the city's abandoned air strip which taught me about the hierarchy of needs and its implications to community work; the remains of my father taken away without notice from his resting place to give way as burial site for a rich Chinese businessman in town; a medical doctor declining to go with me to treat a sister who was sick with dengue fever and who died soon after; a Chinese store owner in Iyam allowing us to get what we need and to pay later, a kind gesture my Grandmother would remember until her final days; and so on.

Let's end here. I cannot see this page anymore because of the mist in my eyes. Now I remember Mr. Francisco Salazar, our principal, who would shed tears when he walked around the campus and probably would remember something from his own past as a high school student in the same school.

Finally thank you for whoever nominated me for the award. I owe you dinner here in Bohol, my adopted province. Cheers!

NMP/06 Oct 2012

Singing the National Anthem

Had time last night to see Taken 2 at BQ Mall. I was persuaded to do so because it was Liam Neeson in the lead role. All through the screening, half of my brain cells were getting themselves scrambled in search for a plausible reason why a distnguished actor like Liam would allow himself to be part of this lousy movie. The plot is too contrived; the acting is not so convincing; the thrilling part is so predictable; and the fight routines are so amateurish.

But this piece is not really about the movie. Let the film buffs and critics make mincemeat of this movie. But, well, the movie house was full. One of those rare times that practically all seats were taken in all the few occasions I would allow myself to be dragged to see a movie. I prefer staying home Friday nights.

Anyway, this blog is about the singing of the national anthem. For the last full show in movie houses, the audience is supposed to stand up, put their hand over their right breast and presumably sing along with the recorded song. This routine has deteriorated over the years. If the purpose is to instill love of country, this ceremonial activity does not support this objective with the way we do it.

First, the audience takes quite a long time to rise up. Some continue talking or eating while trying to show obedience by standing up. Same attitude, I guess, in other public gatherings where they do not sing the national anthem anymore. People rise up and listen, rather than sing, to often defective recording or the national anthem. Nobody minds. It's a requirement, not really showing respect to the national anthem.

Sometime you have to wait for ten minutes for the operator to locate the tape or the disc. Even if nobody is actually singing, sometimes the organizers still put a conductor in front doing some motions not quite in sync with the music. Whether the recording is bad or good, the conductor just making some motions not necessarily in harmony with the music and song being played, nobody minds.

Two years ago, I saw a refreshing sight in this routine. In a concert, the recorder malfunctioned. The audience waited and waited while the operator was frantically fixing the machine. There were some foreign guests and everyone was getting restless in viewing this disastrous display of incompetence, lack of preparation, indifference, whatever and then something refreshing happened. Mrs. Iquit Butalid, wife of the former Governor and head of the provincial cultural body, stepped to the front and proceeded to sing and conduct the singing of the National Anthem. A memorable evening because of this!

The audience sang with her, surprised perhaps that it could be done still this way. The way they sang that night, with feelings and vigor and conviction you would think they were discovering for the first time what school children found out years and years ago - that the singing of the national anthem is for reaffirming love of country and the willingness to die for it, if needed.

Could we just go back to this simple activity and not get distracted by bad recording and videos and what-not?

NMP/05 Oct 2012

Focus on Public-Private Partnership (PPP)

During the break after the presentation on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) by Atty. Alberto Agra at the Bohol Tropics yesterday afternoon, I had an informal huddle with Atty. John Vistal, Bohol provincial planner, and Ms. Imelda Borromeo, economic sector head. All three of us agreed it was a brilliant and comprehensive briefing that the internationally certified PPP specialist did for more than one hour before representatives of the provincial LGU and its development partners from sectoral agencies, business and civil society groups, including the academe and NGOs.

Atty. Agra used comparison of his proposed PPP Code to the Davao City Public-Private Partnership and the PPP Manual for LGUs prepared by the PPP Center at national level. He showed the similarities and differences among the three codes and, in the process, clarified issues to enable participants to move towards crafting a framework for the formulation of a relevant PPP Code for the Province.

Some key ideas from the PPP orientation:

-Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme is not the only modality available for PPP. The other modalities are:

• Concession
• Joint ventures 
• Service contract 
• Management contract 
• Lease or affermage 
• Corporatization 
• Disposition/divestment

-The BOT Law and the Government  Procurement Reform Act provide the legal basis for service and managment contracts, while the Commission on Audit Circular No. 89-296 governs the divestment/dispossesion modality. In the absence of legislation on the PPP, LGUs can proceed to formulate their own PPP Code as long as its provisions do not violate existing laws.

-A local PPP Code can provide a framework for bringing in the strengths of the private sector in the overall development goal of decentralizing and strengthening LGUs. The PPP modalities can:

• provide funding to make possible cost-efficient delivery of services; 
• ensure better and affordable services; 
• contribute to  general welfare;
• facilitate the maximum use of existing government assets;
• provide for the sharing of risks that can lead to efficiency and lower costs of service delivery.

-The conduct of feasibility studies can lead to projects that are:
 technically feasible;

• legally acceptable; 
• environmentally compliant; 
• socially acceptable;  and 
• economically viable. 

 -The PPP Code should include regulatory provisions to ensure compliance with the overall development agenda and policy framework of the provincial government.

In my view, the PPP supports decentralization of authority to LGUs and enables them to address common constraints to local development planning and implementation. The private sector, on the other, hand is given the opportunity to contribute to the public good in ways that also ensure the financial sustainability its projects.

I suggest that the PPDO, headed by Atty. John Vistal, re-echo the orientation to the municipal LGUs and other sectors so that all of us in Bohol can fully support this initiative to put in place a strategy which can further strengthen local governance in the pursuit of poverty reduction and sustainable development.

NMP/05 Oct

Time to Take A Break

Yesterday, it was Richard and this afternoon, it was Karen. They are young people, not yet 20 years old, I suppose. Both are physical therapy students at the local Univ. I had to do therapy routines for one hour each session three days a week as treatment to this combination of ailments: one is carpal tunnel syndrome which causes the four fingers of my left hand to get locked each morning for the past two weeks or so,  and the other is called "trigger finger" which refers to the intense pain I feel in my  ring finger, also in my left hand.

The doctor, whose name I cannot recall probably because he forgot to introduce himself in his hurry to find out what ails my left hand. Anyway, he did the ultrasound stuff and and showed me on the monitor the discrepancy in sizes of the tendons and he gave me to choices: either to undergo surgery or have an injection on the base of the affected finger.

Meanwhile, I have to submit to physical therapy with the interns in the rehab center. After each session, I actually feel better; I wonder why the doctor did not mention physical therapy as an option. I think because my situation is getting better, I have to postpone decision on the two options given by the doctor.

A colleague in the office says some other staff have a similar problem but they do not go to the doctor. They just limit their time with the computer. This ailment must be rampant during the digital age. I recall I had something like this 15 years ago. In those days, you had to go to Cebu to get your physical therapy treatment. Now the therapy can be done in the University and also at a hospital here in Tagbilaran. Quite a progress in health service delivery, I must say.

While my hands were being subjected to hot water ultrasound treatment and wrapped with hot paraffin wax later, I was busy seeing in my mind's eye all the events which led to this situation: learning to type from Aling Edad when I was 11 years old; typing in a rush to get the issues of the high school and college papers to meet deadlines using all kinds of typewriters; and the same QWERTY stuff for all sorts of computers since the late 1980s loaded with software programs with unique names: WordStar, Wordcraft, WordPerfect, and, of course, the Microsoft Office programs in several versions, etc. Then the social media which entice us to be with Facebook until the wee hours, not to mention the texting away of precious minutes using the mobile phone - of course, another reason to torture our fingers!

Now I understand why I must have this ailment with the unique acronym, CTS,  and also with the Trigger Finger stuff which sounds almost scary. For more than half a century, I have defended on these fingers to express myself and earn a living and write hundreds of project proposals and a few forgettable poems during some boring Sundays. Now I must consider taking a break from the digital age and probably spend a little more time looking at sunsets and, as my friends say, smelling the flowers.

Time to take a break from this laptop. ###

Why I Must Blog Again

Posted on September 30, 2012

 

First, Sonny, my son on visit here in Laya from Manila, was able to retrieve last night, the content of our old website, www.povertycafe.org, which was discontinued early this year due to non-payment of the domain fee. The website contains in its archive consultant reports, discussion papers, notes on projects, reports from my work in several countries since 1981, the year I came to Bohol to establish the UNICEF-assisted Ilaw International Center. Hence, I feel secure that it will be easy to show with these blogs some kind of linkage to my past efforts.

Second, my boss from UNDP, Jeff Liew, visited me two weeks ago here in Bohol, some ten years after my retirement with the advice that when my current project ends next year, I should take a break from development work and do business activities for a change. This was to make me recoup huge financial losses for paying for unsound decisions regarding project work which could not be refunded by donors. To blog again means to continue this “record of my passage” to a life different from the development journey I have taken since the 1970s.

Third, since my last blog I have been in a frency of activities involving two donor-assisted
projects which have given me some precious insights on development work and I regret that I do not have a record of how my thoughts and concepts have evolved during the past two years or so. Blogging will force me to be a little more disciplined in documenting experiences in project work and their effect or possible impact on my beliefs regarding development work or life in general.

Fourth, in responding to Sonny’s questions over breakfast, I realized I have not clarified well enough where I am now in this development journey and why it is important for me to write a book in the future based on this seemingly tortuous journey among characters who are either heroes or villains in this melodrama of fighting poverty “wherever it is to be found in the world,” as the great Mandela put it. I think blogging will enable me to be more systematic in looking for milestones in day-to-day experiences and extracting precious lessons of potential benefit probably to development workers who may emerge from the current chaos of plans, programmes and projects.

Fifth, I must blog again because I have run out of reasons not to. Sonny, who is an IT
practitioner, has offered to host the blog in this new site where he can keep watch and
probably will have the time to review and edit my posts if they become literature too much in a hurry.
Let me start this journey once again after all these months of not writing down anything
and missing opportunities to record some insights and thoughts as a result of looking more
incisively on the events that happen to me or those that I make to happen in this wonderful
world of development projects.

Now for the hard part: let me start to think and write and blog again.

NMP/Tagbilaran City

Baclayon Mon Amour Posted on September 30, 2012

Some friends took it not too seriously when they read my initial Facebook posts about Bikes for Education. They thought I was just trying to please a friend, Joel Uichico, so he would be inspired to go on and make available hundreds of bicycles from Bikes for the World, an NGO based in the US to the schoolchildren of Baclayon.

The bikes delivered in Baclayon were the first made by Bikes for the World in Asia and certainly, in the Philippines. With Joel’s leadership, however, the project has taken a life of its own:

• the project was launched;
• more than a hundred students who live 3 to 7 kms. away from school, and whose parents have income below the poverty line, have been trained by Joel and received the bikes;
• a committee under the School Board was identified to partner with Bikes for the Philippines in carrying
  out the Bikes for the Education project
• an Advisory Council was formed to advise both entities regarding issues which might be brought to
  their attention;
• initial steps have been taken to expand the project in Maribojoc, Bohol;
• the Bikes for the Philippines has been reorganized from having a project status to being a Foundation
  with a Board of Trustees; and
• multimedia publicity both at local and national levels ensued that focuses on the need for alternative
  transport to enable students, disadvantaged by distance from school and the old poverty-related burdens

Joel, in the process, became recipient of several prestigious awards both for the initial accomplishments
of the project and its potential.

With these milestones, Bikes for Education, has become serious business. Like other development projects, its implementation is affected by factors outside the control of the project.

Compliance with basic rules may be hampered by the inability of students to comprehend fully the requirements of these rules; dysfunctional families may result in abuse in the use of the bikes; scarcity of funding resources may hamper the ability of the beneficiary families and the schools to contribute to bicycle maintenance and repair; new shipment of bikes from abroad will require fresh funds for transport and freight charges and hence, will require added vigour to advocacy campaigns and fund-raising.

To help ease the burden of such constrainsts on Bikes for Education project, a new initiative has been launched in Baclayon. Though the efforts of the Municipal Tourism Officer, Ms. Emily Pedersen, a comprehensive Eco-Cultural Tourism Plan 2012 – 2015 has been formulated which has been endorsed by the Municipal Tourism Council and approved by the LGU through Mayor Alvin Uy.

The Plan has identified 9 priority projects which will involved and benefit all 17 barangays but with focus on the participation of households more relatively disadvantaged than others. Around half of the priority projects have been packaged for possible donor support. Hopefully, this will ease economic burdens of target households and in the process also solve some constraints met by the Bikes for Education Project supported by Bikes for the Philippines and Bikes for the World.

For Bikes for Education and the other sectoral projects, we need to launch the Baclayon Mon Amour campaign to get widespread support to meritorious projects such as those in Bikes for Education and the priority projects identified by the Municipal 5-year eco-tourism plan.

NMP/Tagbilaran City (30 Sep 2012)

Go Local, Identify Community and Household Assets

In Baclayon, Bohol, this mantra has meant producing a comprehensive ecotourism plan based first on collective efforts to identify existing livelihood activities, skills and crafts and agreeing on how to put them to greater use.
A total of around 200 people representing various sectors in each of the 17 barangays went through this process facilitated by the Municipal Tourism Officer, Emily Pedersen. Their output is the 109-page Baclayon Community-Based Eco-Cultural Tourism Plan 2012-2016. It is considered the most comprehensive ECT Plan produced in the province.
The key sections, after the brief introduction and Baclayon overview, are as follows:

• Municipal Tourism Profile
• Visitors/Tourists Profile
• Community Participation Strategy
• Brief Project Profiles

Of interest to many are the following 9 priority projects:

• Caving Tours
• Dasitam Rice Farming and Tours
• Cultural Bike Tours
• Libertad Campground
• Montaña Performing Arts Group
• Pamilacan Island Dolphin and Whale Watching Booking System Upgrade
• San Isidro Mountain Bike Park
• San Roque Pottery and Handicrafts
• Souvenir Showroom and Livelihood Development Center

The five-year plan has been discussed an endorsed by the Municipal Tourism Council to Mayor Alvin Uy, who subsequently approved it for implementation. The Baclayon Business Enterprises Association (BBEA) has been organized to mobilize private sector support to the plan. LGSP-LED, through Padayon BMT, is providing technical assistance to BBEA during the critical initial stage.
The Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF) collaborates with the MTO for systematic provision of
assistance to enable local communities to implement the priority projects.

Back to where it all began

March to August. Yes, 5 months out of Habitat. Busied myself in a number of ways here in our beloved Bohol: trying to raise pigs the organic way; going back to where a country begins, the village of hard work and still fantastic dreams; wracking nerves and brains complying with donor's requirements for two projects which were about to end; exploring caves in Lamanok island; sharing memories separately with two families of old friends, one from Habitat and the other from UNICEF;

getting what the doctor called low-level flu, which does not quite disable you, but it makes you feel your limbs are too heavy to carry; remembering old friends and other relations; trying to find ways on how to feel on one's skin the late afternoon rains; reaffirming one's true worth and resolving in the end to just move on and just "follow your dreams";

cleansing oneself of toxic thoughts and heeding the advice to just think of others; getting out of oneself and discovering the antidote against pain and cynicism and hopelessness; trying to smell the roses and look at sunsets ... In the end, there is the persistent call to go back to where it all began, the search for a father whose bones where scattered far and wide to look for a proper home, away from the restrictions imposed by institutions which take care of properties such as cemeteries and not care where the dead among the poor can park their bones and their spirit prayed to and remembered with candles against the wind ...

farewell my foot-loose friend. on monday, 24 august, we return to work not to habitat, but to a bilateral agency which seeks to do innovative work in a cluster of municipalities to demonstrate how to make local governance a fertile ground to help grow the local economy. farewell organic pigs, exotic caves, timid rains, unmerciful procedures that work only for the rich and powerful.

yes, yes, back to development work. sabi nga ng isang kaibigan, balik sa walang kamatayang development work. will keep you posted. cheers!

Love Affair with a Software

First it was called LPRAP software. LPRAP means Local Poverty Reduction Plan. That was five years ago. LPRAP was what government was promoting to be done at barangay level. Government intended that prior to submitting projects, Local Government Units or LGUs should first come up with village plans as basis for project preparation and budgetary allocation.

Nobody took it seriously. Everyone went the old way of writing project proposals and bundling these off and the compilation of projects they called LPRAP. No sweat really.

We took it seriously though at the provincial planning office here in Bohol, an island province of 1.26 million people in Central Philippines. Our team was obsessed with creating a digital tool that will make it easier to rank households and communities based on core poverty indicators and to direct interventions to those who need assistance the most.

We recruited a British IT professional, Tony Irving, to help us design the tool. Tony is still with us through five agonizing years. Sometimes there is salary where there's a grant or a project. In other times, he switches to a volunteer mode. Being single, he does not worry too much about money. Well, actually he worries, but the passion to create this software rules our days beyond comfort and ordinary afflictions, such as lack of money.

I talked with him the other day and he assured me Version 2.3 can do away with a senior programmer. It is quite stable. He has succeeded to design a tool that will not only track needs, but also household and community assets which can be developed to address poverty-related constraints. He is confident that even if he disappears from the scene, the software can be used by agencies and organizations involved in poverty reduction work.

But I told him we still need him perhaps less than a programmer now, but a mentor. There is also the need and the challenge to maximize the use of the tool. It's an innovative, exciting tool. LGUs want the household poverty database in their system. But whether they are using it to the maximum in targeting disadvantaged households and monitoring what happens next in terms of service delivery, is another matter.

I challenged Tony that for the next phase he has to be here still to see how we can demonstrate concretely in specific municipalities and villages that the software and the database have helped alleviate poverty. He merely smiled. Knowing Tony and how he has labored to design this tool based on the problems and the needs and the challenges that we threw him the past five years, I think he will continue this love affair with the software here in Bohol.

Now we must multiply the number of IT specialists who will love this software. The love affair continues.

Retirement Blues

You know you are on retirement if you wake up in the morning and wonder how you will spend the day. You rise up, open the computer to either Gmail or Yahoo, and you wonder why there's no email for you. Weeks before, you had quite a lot of them, each one screaming for an urgent response. So you crawl back to bed ten minutes after you wake up, which should be around 4 something, and lay in the dark waiting for the sun to shine. You endure those hours in the privacy of your own thoughts. You are retired and the biggest problem is how to make yourself useful again. You wonder why you were not ask to volunteer by the organization which last claimed the best of what you could offer as an employee with 32 years of professional work behind you.

Fortunately, it took me just three days to bounce back from this state often referred to when we were young as a period of "suspended animation." A confused state; a time when you seem not to be able to decide firmly on anything at all. You just want to stay in your room, often in bed, trying to decide whether to continue reading a book you started to read a week before, click the TV for CNN or BBC, or just stare blankly at the ceiling, thinking of nothing in particular.

Most of the time, you are left on your own. Everybody's just plain busy minding his or her own business. And this is the most difficult of all, when you are on forced retirement: to find nobody home to talk with. You listen to the birds, the barking of dogs at night, some voices of children at play, but you find no motivation nor energy to be an active participant in the scene unfolding around you. You want to talk about it, but you hold back because you feel you are an intrusion in other people's lives.

So after three days, I have decided to plunge into frenzied work again, go back to work with the NGO I helped set up years before and meddled with everything there on sight. It's a blessing that the organization is in a mess, and I can play hero by trying to gather together the ramparts of a shipwreck. Wow, what a glorious opportunity to prove you are not that old, that you can play the role of paramount chief again, he who goes back to his tribe and lead the fight.

I found myself in the familiar round of staff and committee meetings, field work, observation and monitoring. Suddenly I have found my voice again. The other day, I was in a meeting and again, I found myself being open with my reflections. After the meeting, I wondered whether they appreciated my being too open with my views. For a while, I doubted the wisdom of joining a meeting in which everybody called me Sir because all the others in the room were half my age.

If you have this doubt, this nagging feeling that people may not appreciate what you say or do, then truly you will know you are getting the familiar retirement blues!

Fieldworker's Joys

The events of the past few days have given us immense joy. First, Dr. Jude Alon came all the way from General Santos City and for three days last week led us through the basics of organic pig and goat raising. It was meant to be a one-on-one mentoring for me to learn practical ways to raise livestock the organic way, but it evolved into a full-blown workshop complete with field practicum involving not only myself but also the field staff of a sustainable agriculture project operating in two towns here in Bohol.

Dr. Jude shared tips on how to prepare feeds from out of plants grown from the garden, how to house pigs or goats, what breeds to raise, how to do castration, etc, and went with us to San Isidro and Sagbayan to visit community projects implemented by our Foundation under an AusAID-assisted program.

The participants did not actually start from zero. We have had the experience of going organic either under a project or as a family initiative. Dr. Jude, a veterinarian, who used to work with the famous Rural Life Center run by the Baptists in Bansalan, Davao del Sur, impressed us with his practical knowledge not only about organic livestock raising, but also how to do contours in slopes to prevent soil erosion. We learned and practised this through the years, having learned it ourselves from the Center, but it was a joy seeing him with farmers actually doing it on a hill behind our farm.

We knew him only by name before he came. His contact addresses were shared with us by a colleague from Habitat who was his brother-in-law. He came and shared his knowledge freely without the usual terms of reference and consultancy fee. He just came upon our invitation and shared what he knew about a subject matter that is now rapidly gaining attention in the face of escalating costs of farm inputs and the need to spare the planet from further abuse of its natural resources.

One of those who came was Dodong Formentera, our community organizer based in Cortes. He has spent almost 25 years or more in community development promoting backyard gardening. He was the motivator and trainer responsible for putting on the ground our efforts to spread the gospel of nature farming. He sat humbly in Dr. Jude's sessions, took notes, and asked questions like an ordinary seminar participants. He, too, had learned how to do the contours from Bansalan and helped propagate its use both in the Philippines and the Pacific, where he worked for several years in a UNDP-funded project. It was a joy seeing him in a conference hall and in the field showing all the traits of a veteran community development worker.

Yesterday, I was with Dr. Pomie Buot, a medical doctor who decided to be a development worker rather than practise her profession, to attend a focus group discussion on governance facilitated by consultants from AusAID. It was attended by representatives from local government units, projects involved in eco-tourism, and from the cultural arts (wonder of wonders!). It was a joy to see both new and old friends still involved in development work here in Bohol fighting a traditional monster called Poverty. Yes, Sir, we are all here still fighting the same foe after all these years. (Ang walang kamatayang development work, sabi nga ni Thelma Cruz, in an email from New Zealand, who used to monitor UNICEF projects as part of her work at the planning authority ages ago).

I must thank everybody for helping out in my reentry to the local development scene here in Bohol. Here we go again, folks. Now it's a joy to join you here in a struggle to the death against this stubborn foe, poverty, poverty, poverty. Walang kamatayan talaga!

Out Where A Country Begins

I remember when I was growing up in my home province, Quezon, I used to read a column in one of the Sunday magazines entitled, "Out Where A Country Begins." I recall I feasted on it with its detailed account of what went on in towns and villages as observed by the columnist. I do not now recall the name of the columnist, but I recall my fascination with his account. I have lived most of my days in rural areas, and I must say, the columnist was seeing things I was only faintly aware of because probably I was so used to the sight and smell and sounds of the local scene that I just ignored them.

These thoughts came to mind last night as I watched a not-too-ordinary activity here in our barangay in Bohol. Multi-awarded musical director, Gardy Labad, who has chosen to settle in a nearby village which is home to his mother and clan in Baclayon, Bohol, came here to do auditions for his Teatro Bol-anon.

He has formed what he calls cultural collectives in Maribojoc and Anda and he is willing to do it in his hometown, too, upon invitation from my family and a neighbor, Dr. Pomie Buot. I saw one presentation of the group in Maribojoc and was amazed at how Gardy transformed ordinary folks, the "istambays" among them, into a 22-member cast of a play based on the town's famous landmark, Punta Cruz.

To date, this theater group has done a total of 30 presentations, including one in Manila. Now it is in Dumaguete City in response to another invitation. I can just imagine the boost to the self-esteem of the young people in the cast. Without this engagement with the cultural collective, they would just be idling away precious time in drinking sprees and other vices too tempting to resist if the day's priorities are vague.

Only 5 came to the audition last night, two sisters, two brothers and one relative of the two sisters with ages ranging from 21 to 10. Each one showed their talents in singing, dancing and acting based on instructions from Gardy. The veteran musical director that he is, Gardy gave pointers to each one of them. Samples: do not imitate other singers, just be yourself; open your mouth wider when you sing, etc. The participants obliged and showed Gardy had mined truly some gems of talent from each one of them.

A crowd of 7 women came, some are relatives of these would-be actors and actresses, and they were all witnesses to the start of a new phenomenon in their village. They said they would invite other young people to join the next audition. Meanwhile, Gardy assigned the five participants to gather stories about fisherfolks since Laya is a fishing village. He says all the would-be actors and actresses will participate in the writing of a play based on the actual life in the village.

The session lasted from 9 to 11 pm. I went to bed convinced this is truly where a country should begin, in villages such as this which is not only in dire need of basic services, but of a boost to their spirit in knowing there is in their midst artistic gems to be mined. ###

The Journey I Have Been (8)

20 Apr 2009. A full month after I arrived here in the Phils. from Kuala Lumpur. I look back, and I feel still uneasy about it all. But I have to accept the fact that my assignment has ended and now I have no choice but to move on.

It has taken me quite a while to get the courage to write down my thoughts as part of a cleansing process. During the past month, I distracted myself going to remote villages and renewing ties with project partners. It was also a blessing that there was the Holy Week. As part of centuries-old tradition, our family joined hundred others to visit at least 7 churches during Maundy
Thursday. Before this, there were church masses or services to attend. In-between these activities, I had time to reflect and put myself a little more at ease with how things were turning out which were not according to plan.

Some time during the period I had also to organize get-togethers for friends and colleagues to celebrate my birthday. I had to put up a happy front to hide the turmoil within me: what do I do at 67 when you are too old to be part of a strategic staff development plan? Or so I thought as I talked as though I was the happiest guy during the occasion. I had to fight self-pity and all that stuff, but this was all in the discipline. I tip my hat to this inner self which absorbs all the excuses and self-deceptions I fabricate to make the business of living a little more bearable.

I have recovered from this temporary setback. Now I am determined to try my hand in something innovative and new. I have decided that I will raise pigs the organic way for the remainder of my days on the planet. It will be a good idea for a book, this epic journey from being a development worker to an organic swine farmer.

This morning, I met with our three workers on the place we are developing here in Bohol and they were not surprised at all to listen to me expound on the merits of going into organic pig raising. We viewed a video together given by a recent guest, a colleague and friend, Raul Salceda. I have invited the brother-in-law of a friend to spend the first week of May with us to give us pointers on how to raise pigs the organic way.

Unless something turns up that will be more exciting than this prospect, I will embark on this journey soon. But I have to keep on reading more on the subject and listening to other people who have tried their hand in this business for quite some time.

For all we know, this can be a more effective way to save the planet and reduce poverty than all those fancy things I have done during the past 32 years of development work.

Let's see - and wish me luck!

The Journey I Have Been (7)

TRANSITION NOTES
12 March 2009; Kepong, Kuala Lumpur

For the past three weeks or so, this word transition has figured quite prominently in my vocabulary. I remember emailing everyone I had met in the course of a a 9-month assignment in Malaysia that I transitioned out of my role as Interim National Director of Habitat Malaysia last 03 Feb when a Malaysian was appointed, as planned, for the post.

I promptly applied for leave and left for the Philippines on 08 Feb to take a much-needed transition from this rather tough assignment. As usual, in an organization dedicated to the proposition that good intentions could triumph over evil, I found my time spent mostly in trying to decipher impure motives that pollute good intentions now and then. In this assignment, I believe I have been able to grow up or wizened up a little bit more to the obvious fact that character transformation is quite an uneven process.

But it is as though I had not known this fact about human nature before. It is just that when you enter an organization, the assumption somehow that you automatically make is that everyone there breathes the same air as to ideals and is walking the talk about noble mission and goals. I forgot what I learned ages ago that we are not perfect and it is through our imperfections that we can glimpse through the vast possibility of our own perfections.

This transition is devoutly to be wished, and worked for. That again is an old lesson that I have learned again and again during the past 9 months. No easy way out of it. We need to purify ourselves and others not in isolation, but in the company of fellow human beings equally caught in the trap of defining perfection in terms of some ideals, but remained hopelessly trapped in the contradictions of the flesh and the spirit.

I guess to be sane, one has to go back to the worn-out example of the glass: you either look at it as half full or half empty and that defines, according to psychologists or philosophers, whether you are pessimistic or optimistic.

Which brings us again to Habitat Malaysia: either you get dismayed that the average number of houses it is building per year is quite low compared to the average in nearby countries which are not so prosperous, or you get optimistic that knowing its constraints, it is able to build and repair houses in recent months more than the monthly average over the ten-year period.

The fact is that Habitat operations has been run largely through volunteers, from family selection to raising funds to the actual building of houses. There is a clear need to transition from this mode of operations to one that will blend professional work with volunteerism if we want to build more houses in such numbers that will impact on the local poverty housing situation.

Ah, transition, thy name is patience.

The Journey I Have Been (6)

10 Jan 2009. Back to Kepong, Kuala Lumpur. Arrived here three days ago. Still on leave, actually. But I have to follow up on a few urgent things for Habitat for Humanity Malaysia. There are deadlines to meet: appointment of a new National Director to replace me (I have been serving in an interim capacity since April last year); consultation with the National Board on the recommendations I have submitted; creation of the Executive Committee, etc.

Most of all, I want to reflect on my life as a new year beckons and, hopefully, make a fresh start. Sounds like a weird thing to say that I am about to turn 67 this April. At this age, I should know better what to do. This matter of starting a new year should really be a simple thing since I have been doing it for the best part of 60 years on the planet. Well, it should, but it is not, as always with life. You never can really be sure that you are making the right tactical decisions to help reach your strategic goal.

There are always distractions to manage, two or more roads vying for attention and each day is a torture to decide which one to take. As everyone knows, the least travelled one appeals to the adventurer in us, but we are actually less and less a risk taker as we grow older as we prefer the easy path. We are predisposed to choose the latter since as we grow older, we are more determined not to squander dwindling resources such as time, money and physical energy.

As I look back through the years, these self-focused reflections almost always include concerns related to the following:

How to manage my ego. This has preoccupied me since I began conscious existence in this life. Some of the outrageous things, as well as a few marvellous things, I have done are conditioned by a powerful need to feed the voracious appetite of a hungry ego. Some of these deeds may have resulted in some worthy achievements that benefit others, but am just amazed at some of the things I say and do sometimes. They seem to arise almost purely from the need to be recognized, to win attention, to score points that boost pride, vanity and self-aggrandizement.

I know, deep down in me, I need to tame this beast if I have to relate more effectively with others.

How to manage other people's ego. Those in my generation most likely know about Dale Carnegie's bestseller, How Win Friends and Influence People. Basically, it's about managing other people's ego. The only problem is that you suspect the other guy must have read the book also and is applying the techniques on you. Which creates skepticism and distrust!

This egocentric type you find everywhere, even in the most unlikely places. Yes, even in groups that are supposed to be selfless in their pursuit of spiritual wealth. Even in people-centered development organizations, I have seen these Lords of Poverty strut about waiting to be pleased, flattered and their enormous ego fed. Sane conversation is impossible at times. Even during consultations, where we are supposed to listen more from those we are consulting with, I have seen types who talk more about themselves, always hammering the point how good they are, how self-sacrificing the are, how they mentored practically everyone in the organization, etc.

Perfect fluent talk, but like the proverbial perfect surgery, the patient or the listener gets perpetually numbed or plain brain dead!

How to be less emotional. I have been trying to overcome this since I was four years old when I used to sneak into our relatives' homes to collect kitchen left-overs so our family of four could have something to eat for the day. My father was dying of TB, and it was my Mother and Grandma who tried to eke out a living by taking odd jobs, just to make us live, my sister and I. It must be during these times that I developed this habit of being misty-eyed each time I see someone in pain like us, emotionally or physically.

Now I am talking again about myself. Falling into that ego trap again!

Well, in the end of all this musing, let's pray for a kinder 2009. We have seen during the past year and early this year, images in newspapers and other media on how the human race could be so cruel to each other. I just hope such cruelty will diminish this year. Almost each year, we pray for this. Thinking more of the other and less of self may be the solution. But, then, nobody listens!

The Journey I Have Been (5)

16 Dec 2008. Still here in Kepong, KL. Last Saturday, I went with Tony Tan, Julia Tan and Patrick Guna to Kampung Lumut at the Lenggeng-Broga area near Mantin, less than two hours from KL. We were joined by Raymond and his wife from EDF & Man, a prospective donor corporation for Habitat Malaysia.

We went to the house of Pa Aru, who belongs to the Orang Asli tribe. He has been trying to repair his 29-year old house, which belongs to his mother-in-law, and he needs help from us in Habitat. His mother-in-law passed away a few years back, but his father-in-law is still alive. He occupies a shack at the back of the house. More than 10 members of three families live in the crowded two-bedroom house.

Pa Aru has three sons, aged from 8 to 16, all of them studying. This is quite unusual. Usually Orang Asli families do not send their children to school on account of distance from their settlements. Most Orang Asli settlements have been pushed to the interior villages because developers have encroached on their land for which they have no legal titles.

Pa Aru must be around 40 years old. You can see around his house evidence that he is not as laid back as the other families of his tribe. He has practically cleared the land near his place and planted bananas. He says this is for "testing." He speaks little English, which is also unusual. He must have completed his primary schooling somewhere.

He brought us to a slope in the nearby hill where water flows incessantly. This spring is the source of water for the village. He wants to divert water to a fishpond where he can grow fish and sell this in the town. In that way, he says, he can pay Habitat the monthly repayments for the planned renovation of his house.

On the way back from the hill, we took another path. He showed us an unoccupied, dilapidated house. He also wants the house repaired so his son and his family can move out from the crowded house to this place. He says he needs help in putting a proper kitchen and toilet and in fixing the wooden floor and walls. Pa Aru says he can work on it, too, being a skilled carpenter. But he will pay back Habitat for the construction materials.

It rained while we were in this second house, a Malay house, by the way, with the posts and the wooden materials used, the wide windows and the porch. We did not see his neighbors although there were similar houses around his place. Must be because of the rain.

Tony and I left Julia and Patrick in the village where they were interviewing Pa Aru's family for the required household profiles. We were in a rush for another meeting in another township, with a Malaysian lady named Helen Lee, who is based in London and lives only for three months in a year in a big house.

She is in her early forties and speaks with a British accent, having lived in London for more than 20 years. It was the first time we were meeting her. She had called the office once or twice asking for an appointment. We came instead to her place. She had prepared lunch for us. It was past 2 pm and over lunch, she took about her vision.

She wants to convert the house into a showcase for bamboo handicraft but the house has to be renovated first so it can show how bamboo could be used in an existing house such as this to combat climate change, a cause she is passionate about.

Two worlds, this one and Pa Aru's, on a Saturday that we had to live through. The Orang Asli family wanting to be part of the modern world with a house made of bricks and that of a lonely ecological warrior who wants to put on reality TV how her house could be transformed into a showcase for bamboo technology, which the Orang Asli tribe has been building houses with for centuries.

Two worlds on a Saturday gently interrupted with a little rain which we have to link somehow in this program to help provide decent, safe and secure houses for the multitude. Talk of a day providing another reason to be alive and well and active through a week-end.

The Journey I Have Been (4)

28 November 2008. Here in Kepong. Almost the end of the year. Have been trying to collect my wits lately. Too many things to do, too little time to do them. I seem to be always lacking time to get rid of all these action items. For this blog, I have been trying to compose in my head what I want to say for the past week or so.

First, thought I would talk about boards of non-profit organizations. It occurred to me that in my rather long career in development work, something like 32 years of professional work, I have yet to see a board that is genuinely functioning according to its mandate. Most of the time, the leadership in these boards is captured by a few who come from some other civic groups and they need to be identified with another organization presumably with more prestige and influence in the community.

Most boards I have worked with is controlled by a strong leader, who tells you to write the minutes even if there has been no meeting held! Members of these boards are almost always busy to meet and if you happen to be in the technical secretariat being paid to support the board, you are in for a rough time. You will be mostly thinking for the board and carry out what you have thought of - with the blessings of the Board. All they do is stir coffee, a friend says. Well, that's for stirring committees, a favorite creation of most boards if they do not want to do the work themselves. These committees will surely get the blame if things do not work out as planned.

Anyway, things get done somehow and everyone is happy. But I really want to see a real Board.

The other matter I thought I would like to write about are those longhouses I saw in Sarawak in two field missions I had with Habitat colleagues and volunteers in such places called Serian, Kapit, Kalapa in Sarekei. It's one house right, but you find inside individual units with families inside. You can count the doors to know how many families live inside those longhouses (one word!). The number can range from 8 to 32 or even more. Actually, a long house is a village named usually after the Kampung chief.

Families in a longhouse share a common area where they can have social functions under one roof. This makes sense. You do not have to take cover in case of rain. Also, it is easier this way to mobilize all the families for a community meeting. But there is also another reason for the common area as told to me by an old woman in a long house. She says she is often requested to look after the children when all the adults go to work during daytime. It's easier for her to do so if the children are all in the common area; she can see all of them from her end of the long room. Makes sense!

The longhouse, as everything else in this dynamic world, has been undergoing changes. In the old days, they were made of bamboos, wood and palm leaves. I have seen longhouses made of cement; the common area has tiles, and the windows have jalousies. There are TV sets, radio, fridge, sofa and other modern amenities inside. I did not see modern beds. The old traditional mats are there on the floor of the one-room family unit. I tell you these are among the best mats I have seen in traditional places - such as those in the Pacific and a few Asian countries.

In some areas in Sarawak, the longhouses have become tourist attractions. Well, you never know how a traditional thing like a longhouse will be in a global village where we all live. They get transformed into something else - such as being a tourist attraction rather than just a traditional abode for a village of families.

The Journey I Have Been (3)

11 Nov 2008. 6.24 a.m. Here in Johor Bahru, 5 hours from Kepong, Kuala Lumpur. I arrived here with the Habitat team two days ago. I am here with Tony and Patrick. Our mission: to look for partner organizations that could identify where we could start our program here to either repair or build houses with relatively disadvantaged households.

Our first contact was with Timothy Li, senior pastor of the Awe Charisma Tabernacle. We met him by the road and he promptly led us to an eatery and bought us lunch consisting of fish, fried chicken and some veggies. It was actually lunch at 3 pm. Then he brought us to his church on a hill.

His story reminded me of what Fr. Acong did in Apad, in my home province, Quezon, in the Philippines. He raised funds over a 5-year period mainly through his family and contributions from his flock. The two-story building could house 250 people during church service conducted in English, Bahasa, and Nepalese. Apparently, some workers from Nepal have become converts.

When the good Pastor, in his late Fifties judging from his youthful looks, brought us to the upper floor where his office is located, we saw in another room several members of the choir or band apparently in a practice session. Lucy, a Filipino, and her daughter and son, were there and greeted us enthusiastically.

In the meeting with the Pastor, he told us in detail how he was able to raise almost RM400,000 to build the church from the savings of the church-goers who were mostly of Indian origin. He himself is Indo-Malaysian. His next big plan is to build an orphanage at the back of the two-acre property that his church had bought out of their savings.

Yesterday, we travelled by car for two hours to a township outside Johor. The place is called Pontian. We went into one of the interior villages and met with Ken Kwan, his wife Tan Suan Chen, and their 9 children. I could not see any neighbor in this Malay village. They are the only Chinese family in this Malay village. It was quite courageous of them to move from KL to a remote place like this. With the help of some friends from KL, the couple built a house from second hand construction materials of two houses which were torn down.

Their house looks spacious enough for a big family like theirs. To survive, the family grow vegetables on their two-acre lot. Their children range in age from 16 to 6 months. Ken and his wife remembered Tony as their pastor more than 12 years ago in another place in Malaysia. They even remembered one his sermons.

It turned out Ken is himself a Pastor but without a congregation yet. How he will raise and grow his flock is still a dream. Meanwhile, he agreed to be our contact person in this remote place. He brought us to his Malay friend, who prefers to be called Boy. Boy showed us the foundations of the house he has been building for the last eight years to replace the crumbling wooden structure they inherited from their great great grandfather.

He said he would save enough and partner with Habitat in getting the house done. Tony estimates the house will cost around RM18,000. We told Boy we would exert efforts to help him and demonstrate to other Malay families how we all could work together to address their housing needs.

Then we rushed back to Johor where we met with Michael Yeo, senior pastor of the Church of Praise, and Steven, their accountant. They showed us a 10,000 sq. m. lot which belongs to their church. The piece of land is overlooking squatter communities along the Sungai Danga river. Michael says we can collaborate on building a community center here in which both Habitat and their church can manage to provide services to the families across the road, along the river. It is an ideal site for a Habitat Resource Center which can train unemployed youth from nearby communities on house construction skills so they themselves can repair or build houses for target households.

We went back to the hotel with gratitude in our hearts. Those Pastors had made our day.

Cheers!