A Development Worker's Blog

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:13:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 10:10:00 +0000

NOTE FOR THE RECORD, 07 Sept 2021

Nestor Maniebo Pestelos

Shared with Public

This is to acknowledge the donation amounting to Php 24,877.10 in honor of Cesar Rivera Reyes, who passed away recently in Sydney, Australia. Cesar is husband of Milwida Sevilla-Reyes, our former classmate at the Quezon National High School in Lucena City.

The fund will support the Young Agripreneurs Kahayag Association Project (YAKAP) an initiative of the Kahayag Farm and Social Action Center to promote entrepreneurship among young people in the all-important agriculture sector which has been affected adversely by aging farming population and lack of interest among the young. 

The YAKAP initiative was inspired by the lifelong advocacy of the late Zacarias B. Sarian to make farmers entrepreneurs to get them out of poverty. 

Previous donors to the initiative included the late Zac Sarian himself; close friend Milwida Sevilla-Reyes; Lyda Jara-Canson; and Lanita Pamaran Klainatorn. Gen. Charlie Alejandrino, Mil's former student, facilitated earlier donations shortly after the start of the pandemic. 

In-kind donors included the Provincial Planning and Development Office (PPDO) of Bohol who donated and planted 80 fruit tree seedlings. #YoungAgripreneurs #SurvivingTogether #SurvivingThePandemic

Frank A Hilario, Cora Latorre and 3 others

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Comment

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 01:16:00 +0000

HIGHLIGHTS OF LIFE AND CAREER

1. NAME : Nestor Maniebo Pestelos

(a) Date and Place of Birth: 14 April 1942 Nationality: Filipino ; Tiaong, Quezon Province

(b) Civil Status: ( ) Single ( X ) Married ( ) Separated ( ) Widowed

If married, name of spouse: Florencia Gilay-Pestelos

Nationality: Filipino

Occupation: Entrepreneur

Home Address: Upper Laya, Baclayon, Bohol

Telephone: (038) 540 9327 Mobile: (0917 304 1450}

Email Address: npestelos@gmail.com

Community Development Specialist;

Consultant on Poverty Reduction and Local Governance

(d) Current Position:

Owner/Manager

Kahayag Learning Site and Social Action Center

Upper Laya, Baclayon, Bohol 6301

(e) Other positions/affiliations:

Member, Upsilon Sigma Phi Fraternity, Batch 1963

Member, University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA)

Member, UP Los Banos Alumni Association – Bohol Chapter

Member, Asian Institute of Management Alumni Association

Head, Advocacy Ministry, Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP), Tagbilaran City East Chapter

Member, Quezon Medalya ng Karangalan Foundation

Member, Association of Filipino International Civil Servants (APICS)

Trustee, Bohol Social Action Foundation, Inc. (BoSAFI)

2. ACADEMIC BACKAGROUND/TRAINING

PhD in Educational Management

University of Bohol

March, 1989

Master in Management

Asian Institute of Management

March, 1987

University of the Philippines: Degree(s)/Year(s) of Graduation

Note: Although he earned units more than the number required, he was not given the formal Bachelor’s degree due to a technicality. He was however given the Outstanding Alumnus Award for Community Service and Local Governance on 09 Oct 2015 in recognition of his services in the Philippines and 17 other countries as UNDP Chief Technical Adviser and in projects funded by international donor agencies.

On May 28, 2019, he was given a Life Membership Certificate by the University of the Philippines Alumni Association “with all rights, honors, privileges and responsibilitites appertaining thereto.”

Training Programs/Scholarships

a. Local Social Development Planning UNCRD Nagoya, Japan (1985)

b. Evaluation of Community-based Projects Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia Sponsored by UNICEF (1985)

c. Planning and Appraisal of Rural Development Projects University of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England Fellowship sponsored by UNICEF (1982)

d. Integrated Rural Development Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development, Comilla, Bangladesh Internship sponsored by UNICEF (1981)

e. Planning and programming, management, monitoring and evaluation of child-based programme conducted by UNICEF New York and Regional (Bangkok) Staff (1979)

3. AWARDS

2021 Outstanding and Noble Award (UNO)

Awarded 20 February 2021 by Upsilon Sigma Phi, Asia’s oldest fraternity founded 1918 at the

University of the Philippines. Cited as community development guru in the Philippines and 17

other countries mostly in the Asia-Pacific region in his work with UNDP, UNICEF and Habitat for

Humanity International.

2019 UPAA Distinguished Alumnus Award in Poverty Alleviation and Human Development

Awarded 24 August 2019 for advocating community empowerment through

Non-goverment organizations in Bohol, one of which developed the Poverty Database

Monitoring System now replicated in Asia-Pacific region.

2017 Gawad Kadakilaan

Awarded 23 September 2017 on the occasion of the Sixth Philippine I Transform! Young Leaders Convention in Baguio City and on the 2^nd year of the adoption of the United Nations global development agenda, Sustainable Development Goals

Citation reads: “In deep appreciation for the exemplary effort and noble commitment to the work of community develoment, reaching out to the poorest of the poor, creating local opportunities with their interest as the paramount concern, and for being an inspiration to the Filipino youth.”

2016 – Pride and Recognition Award

Given 20 August 2016 by Class 1958 of Quezon Provincial High School, Lucena City

Citation reads: “For outstanding contribution and indefatigable devotion to community service and development ...”

2016 Quezon Medalya ng Karangalan (for Public Service – Community Development)

Awarded 19 August 2016; 138^th birth anniversary, President Manuel L. Quezon

Citation reads: “Umikot ang buhay ni G. Nestor Pestelos sa pagsulong sa kanyang adbokasya sa pagpapaunlad ng komunidad. Sa mahigit na apatnapung taon s nasabing larangan, nakapagtrabaho siya sa ilalim ng Pamahalaan ng Pilipinas, United Nations, mga internationasyonal na ahensya, at mga NGOs. Naging kasangkapan ng kaniyang huwarang husay at sipag upang mapataas ang antas ng pamumuhay ng napakaraming tao hindi lamang sa Quezon o Pilipinas, kundi maging sa mga bansa ng Fiji, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Palau, Samoa, Marshall Islands, Maldives, Cook Islands, Micronesia, Thailand, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Malaysia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India at Cambodia.

2015 Outstanding Alumnus Award (for Community Service and Local Governance), University of the

Philippines, Los Banos

Awarded 09 October 2015 by the UPLB Alumni Association

Citation reads: “For 40 years of continuing, dedicated and outstanding track record in promoting community development and local governance, his expertise and innovative ideas in addressing urgent issues critical to sustainable community development and effective local governance that benefitted his nation and other developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region; and for his excellence and passion as advocacy leader for community development and local governance through two NGOs, the Ilaw International Center (IIC) which he helped establish and manage in Bohol in the 1980s with the country’s pioneers in community development; and the successor NGO, the Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF), which he founded in 2003 to continue the role of IIC as resource institution for both local governments and community organizations in their partnership towards participatory development.”

2015 Rappler Enterprise Award

Given on 26 September 2015 during the Rappler Mover Awards Ceremony

Citation reads: “ A person who has successfully channeled passion and drive into a thriving social enterprise that uplifts and empowers a marginalized sector.”

Note: Rappler.com is a social news network where stories inspire community engagement and digitally fuelled actions for social change

2012 Most Outstanding Community Builder, 2012 Dangal ng Quezon High Award

Given October 2, 2012 during the 110^th Anniversary of the Quezon Provincial High School, Lucena City

Citation reads: “For selfless dedication to local and International development over 40 years.”

2009 Habitat for Humanity International

Given on 29 April 2009

Citation reads: “For your contribution from March 2005 to April 2009 as Regional Program Manager for Habitat for Humanity’s program in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Timor Leste and, latterly, Malaysia, as well as your expertise in developing program monitoring and evaluation and project-based finance initiatives thereby ensuring proper stewardship of the resources needed to deliver their vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to call home.”

2003 International Human Development Award,

Class 1958, Quezon Provincial High School,

Lucena City. Given 28 December 2003

2002 Outstanding Quezon National High School Alumni Award

Given on 20 Oct 2002.

Citation reads: “ in deep appreciation of the exemplary intellectual breed, multiple skills

and benevolent heart devoted selflessly for the welfare of the field of endeavor

where he has made a name for himself for the honor and glory of his beloved Alma Mater, the Quezon National High School in particular and the global community in general.”

4. EMPLOYMENT (Position and name of employer):

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

November 2020 to the present

Manager, Kahayag Farm and Social Action Center

Works with the Agricultural Traing Instituce – Central Visasyas to convert the family-own Balay Kahayag Training and Retreat Center as a Learning Site for Agriculture (LSA) and eventually a Farm School in five years’ time.

August 2003 to November, 2017

Founder and President, Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF)

Provides technical assistance to Government agencies. LGUs, donors and NGOs in the development and promotion of a household poverty database system using a survey methodology and software for poverty tracking and monitoring interventions and evaluating their impact to specific households and disadvantaged groups, such as women, children, out-of-school youth and the elderly.

February 2015 to June 2018

Columnist, Bohol Tribune

Wrote the weekly column “In This Our Journey” as vehicle for discussing development issues and events related to poverty reduction strengthening local governance; mobilizing citizen participation in promoting environmental sustainability; and in seeking more effective approaches to drug addiction. The compiled articles are now being edited to be published as two books, Unfortunate Choice and Eating Projects for Breakfast.

July 2010 to July 2014

Member, Board of Directors, AlcanzConsult, Inc. (Composed of retired UN staff)

Provided technical and management services in planning, programme development and management in the social sector with focus on child rights and welfare and in emergency preparedness to government agencies, bilateral agencies, United Nations and Bretton Wood Institutions, Non-Government Organizations and private institutions guided by corporate social responsibility.

September 2014 to June 2015

Member of 3^rd Party Monitoring Team, Emergency Unconditional Cash Transfer for families affected by Haiyan/Yolanda in Guian, Samar. Project under UNICEF Manila.

October 2013 to August 2014

Convenor, Bohol Quake Assistance Fund Drive

in support of the Community-Based Shelter Assistance Project (for families whose houses were totally destroyed during the 15 Oct 2013 earthquake)

An initiative of Bohol Local Development Foundation in partnership with Miriam College, Habitat for Humanity Philippines, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD} and Peacock Garden Spa and Resort

January 2010 to October 2013

Project Manager, Realizing DReAMS (Development of Resources and Access to Municipal Resources) Project. Funded by European Union (EU), implemented in the Philippines, India, Bangladesh,and

Bhutan in partnership with the International Council of Environmental Initiatives

(ICLEI)

August 2009 to March, 2010

Partnership Adviser (Part-time), LGSP-LED (Local Governance Support Programme for Local Economic Development) Bohol funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Provided technical advice to Local Government Units (LGUs) and their partners in

the planning, implementation and monitoring of activities related to enterprise

development among disadvantaged groups in eight municipalities in Bohol within the

context of Bohol Integrated Area Development (BIAD)

March to July 2009

Project Director, Community-Managed Eco-Cultural Tourism (CoMET) Project funded by

AusAID PACAP (Philippines-Australia Community Assistance Project)

Provided technical advice to LGUs and their development partners in the promotion of organic food production and community-based tourism in four target municipalities

February 2007 – March 2009

Regional Programme Adviser, Habitat for Humanity International

Provided technical support to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and other

Programme countries in the region

Served concurrently as Interim National Director for Habitat for Humanity Malaysia

August 2007 – December 2007

Interim National Director, Habitat for Humanity Fiji

April, 2006 – December 2006

Interim National Director, Habitat for Humanity Timor Leste

April 2006 – March 2007

Project Director, Strengthening Local Governance

for Sustainable Economic Growth and Effective

Service Delivery Project funded by UK Economic

Governance Facility

Provided technical advice to inter-disciplinary teams (trainer/planner, IT specialist, institution building specialist, monitoring and evaluation teams) in working with Local Government Units and organized communities in ensuring sound economic governance and effective service delivery to target households in priority communities with insurgency problems.

15 March 2005 – 15 February 2007

Regional Programme Manager (Southeast Asia)

Habitat for Humanity International

Provided supervision and technical support to the staff and volunteers of Habitat National Organizations, as well as Habitat partner agencies primarily in the Philippines, Timor Leste, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Note: Served in this post during post-tsunami relief and rehabilitation operations in Bandah Aceh, Indonesia

01 July 2004 to 01 March 2005

Head, Bohol Poverty Reduction Management Office (BPRMO)

Provincial Government of Bohol, Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines

Supervised technical staff and field workers involved in implementing projects of the Provincial Poverty Reduction Programme particularly those by Municipal Local Government Units and local communities in insurgency-influenced areas. Designed, implemented and evaluated training and capability-building activities for government officers, local political leaders and volunteers planning and implementing these projects.

01 April 2002 to 30 June 2004

Consultant on Rural Development and Governance

Provincial Planning and Development Office (PPDO), Bohol Province

Provided technical assistance in the formulation of a common framework for poverty reduction and sustainable development as guide to LGUs, provincial and national government agencies, civil society institutions and private sector entities in identifying projects for disadvantaged communities and groups.

September 1997 to December 2001

Chief Technical Adviser

Solomon Islands

Development Administration and Participatory

Planning Programme (SIDAPP) –UNDP Fiji Islands

Provided technical assistance for the organization, training and establishment of the Rural Development Division of the Ministry. Supervised the field-testing of training modules to improve capacities at provincial government levels within a decentralisation context. Designed the training and social preparation activities to bring about closer collaboration of LGUs and local communities in project identification and development, as well as improve capacities for decentralised governance.

February 1994 to June 1997

Participatory Development Specialist

Pacific Regional Integrated Atoll Development Project

(IADP) – UNDP Fiji Islands; UNDP Maldives

Provided technical inputs for training, advocacy activities and practical approaches to participatory planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation in 10 South Pacific atoll countries and the Republic of Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

September 1989 to January 1994

Community Development Specialist/Trainer

Pacific Regional Equitable and Sustainable Human

Development Programme (ESHDP)

– UNDP Fiji Islands; UNDP Maldives

Provided technical assistance to LGUs on how to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate community development programmes in the various atoll countries both in the Pacific and Indian Oceans

April 1988 to January 1989

Project Coordinator

Social Mobilisation Project for Child Survival and Development

UNICEF Manila

Coordinated the nationwide implementation by government agencies and NGOs of several component subprojects (policy research and advocacy; community participation and training; public information and media support; program monitoring and evaluation) with focus on the country’s 8 poorest provinces.

November 1982 to March 1988

Resident Director

Ilaw International Training Center

Tagbilaran City, Bohol Province

Supervised 20 senior staff involved in training, organising and research activities for community development projects assisted by UNICEF, USAID, World Bank, AUSAID, UNFPA, and other donors

May 1980 to October 1982;

Chief, Division of Planning, Research and Communication, Project Compassion

May 1977 to April 1980

Special Assistant to the President

Project Compassion

Designed the planning, monitoring and evaluation system, research and communication programmes of the NGO assisted by UNICEF and USAID in support of integrated basic services delivery to target households

December 1976 to April 1977

Planning Officer, Environmental Center of the Philippines;

Information Officer, National Green Revolution Programme

Responsible for the formulation of local action plans and public information campaigns related to environmental conservation and protection and backyard food production.

1964 to 1974

Editor, Monthly Bulletin, a publication for the alumni of UP Los Banos

Teacher, Literature and Journalism, Pedro Guevarra Provincial High School, Sta. Cruz, Laguna

Editor, Aras News, a publication of the Sanvictores Group of Companies

Editor, Farms and Gardens, a publication of the Manila Chronicle

Executive Assistant to the Editor, Farms and Forests, a publication of the Permanent Association of Permanent Forests

Publicity Chief, RR Public Relations, Inc.

Other Project Experiences:

Team Leader, UN Country Team for preparing the Isabel Province Development Project in line with the UNDAF (2002, UNDP South Pacific); Coordinator, Provincial Government Review and Strengthening Project for Solomon Islands (1997, ADB);

Training Manager, Local Resource Management Project (1985, USAID);

First International Course on Appropriate Community Development (1985, UNICEF);

Training Director, Central Visayas Regional Project (1984, World Bank); Team Leader, Social Preparation Project, Urban Poor Project (1984, UNFPA); Coordinator and Chief Trainer, Regional Programming Workshops for Child-based Programmes (1981, UNICEF).

COUNTRIES OF WORK EXPERIENCE

Fiji, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Palau, Samoa, Marshall Islands, Maldives, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Thailand, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Malaysia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Philippines

KEY CONSULTANCIES

Consultant, "Mid-term Evaluation of AECID Regional Program to Promote Gender Equality in Political Participation in Five countries” Funded by Agencia Española de CooperaciónInternacionalpara el Desarrollo (AECID)with the aim of providing technical assistance to Paz y Desarrollo (PyD).

(May – July 2013)

Consultant, Evaluation of Presidential Awards for Child-Friendly Governance Funded by UNICEF and the Commission for the Welfare of Children (August to September 2013)

Consultant on Rural Development and Governance Provincial Planning and Development Office Bohol Provincial Government (01 April 02 to 01 March 04)

Project Formulation and IRD Consultant

Isabel Province Development Project (IPDP), Solomon Islands

UNDP Suva (Nov-Dec 02)

Consultant on technical content and design

Experts Group Meeting on the Post-Conflict Situation in Solomon Islands

University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia (Oct 01)

Evaluator, Palau National Integrated Rural Development Programme

Palau Community Action Agency

Koror, Palau (Oct 00)

Evaluator, Vanuatu Sustainable Human Development Programme

Ministry of National Planning

Port Vila, Vanuatu (Jun 00)

Consultant on Community Organising

4th Regional Workshop on Health Education

South Pacific Commission

Noumea, New Caledonia (December 1990)

Consultant on Community Development and Institution Building Training

Programme Formulation

UNDP-OPS Integrated Atoll Development Project

Suva, Fiji (February - June 1989)

Consultant on Philippine History and Participatory Development

International Course on Regional Planning

Sponsored by NEDA and the Human Settlements Centre of Israel (December 1988)

UNICEF Consultant on Social Mobilisation

Formulated the Project Plan of Action on Social Mobilisation for the 1988-1992

Philippine Country Programme (November - December 1987)

Consultant on Community Participation

Combined Expert Group Meeting on Social Development Alternatives and Second

Training Seminar in Local Social Development Planning

UNCRD Nagoya, Japan (October 1985)

Consultant on Community Mobilisation

Central Visayas Resource Management Project

(November - December 1984) World Bank

Consultant on Community Participation

ASEAN Training Centre for Primary Health Care Development

Bangkok, Thailand Assisted by WHO and UNICEF (October 1984)

Consultant on Community Participation

UN ACC Subcommittee on Nutrition and FAO

Conference on Nutrition and Community Participation

Bangkok, Thailand (March 1982)

Consultant on Community Participation

Learning Exercise on Community Participation

Sponsored by UNICEF and attended by participants from India, Thailand, Pakistan.

Held in Cebu and Bohol. (September 1981)

Consultant on Community Participation

International Workshop on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation

Sponsored by UNICEF and held in Ubol Ratchathanee, Thailand (March 1981)

RESEARCHES AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Unfortunate Choice – Published July 2019

Old Warrior’s Poems and the Bohol Quake Assistance Story – Published June 2015; Co-authored with Milwida Reyes-Sevilla

Old Warrior and Other Poems – Published April, 2014

Eating Projects for Breakfast – To be published

Real Virus and Other Poems – To be published

Medium-rise buildings in urban slums: Bringing Habitat for Humanity to the next level in the Philippines

2008: Vol. 15 No. 1, The Forum, Habitat for Humanity International

Strategic Planning Leads to Sound Organizational Health: the Philippines Experience

2006 Vol. 13 No. 1, The Forum, Habitat for Humanity International

Developing an Integrated MDG Database in Habitat Communities

2006 Vol. 13 No. 4, The Forum, Habitat for Humanity International

Bohol Program Framework on Poverty Reduction

June 2003, Provincial Planning and Development Office

Constituency Profiles and Action Plans (Solomon Islands)

September 2001, Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development

Manual on Participatory Profiling, Planning and Project Development

December 2000, Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development

Solomon Islands

Participation for Human Development

Published as Chapter 4, Pacific Human Development Report

July 1994

Human Security and Community Aspirations in the Lolihor Watershed Area

UNDP/ESHDP Paper

July 1994

Practical Lessons from the Successes and Failures of Revolving Fund Schemes

IADP Occasional Paper #11

March 1992

Community Organising in the Context of Social Mobilisation

IADP Occasional Paper #4

January 1991

Outer Island Capability Enhancement Process (OICEP) - An Institutional Development Strategy

for Small Islands

(Co-written with Jeff Liew)

IADP Occasional Paper #6

January 1991

Approaches to Enhancing Rural Capability

(Written for Hubert H. Humphrey Foundation)

UNICEF Manila; January 1989

Lessons from the Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life) Movement in the Province of Bohol

University of Bohol

UNICEF Manila; June 1988

Popular Participation in Local Social Development Planning and Implementation

Asian Institute of Management

UNICEF Manila; May 1987

Focus on the Eskaya, a Hillyland Tribe

Asian Institute of Management

UNICEF Manila, April 1986

NGOs as a Mechanism for Building Grassroots Participation in Local Development: the Ilaw Approach

UNCRD Nagoya

October 1985

Community Organising Alternatives for Primary Health Care

ASEAN Training Centre for PHC Development

UNICEF Bangkok, Thailand

February 1984

Reflections on Community Participation and Project Development

Central Visayas Regional Project

World Bank; April 1983

Community Initiatives in the Nutrition Sector

FAO Bangkok

February 1982

Community Participation in the Context of Rural Water Supply and Sanitation

UNICEF Bangkok

December 1981

Some Problems in Strengthening Local Structures: Lessons from the Comilla Approach

Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development

UNICEF Bangkok; March 1981

Social Preparation Strategies and their Implications to Country Programming

UNICEF Manila February 1979

Lessons from Project Compassion: Towards a New Approach to Community Development Project Compassion Manila

UNICEF Manila

April 1978

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

His early professional experiences, for the period 1967 to 1989, included the following: Editor, UP Los Banos Monthly Bulletin, the alumni paper; teacher on Journalism and Literature, Pedro Guevarra Memorial High School, Sta. Cruz, Laguna; public relations officer for fund-raising causes, RR Public Relations; editor, Forests and Farms, publication of the Permanent Forests Association of the Philippines; information officer, Sanvictores Group of Companies and concurrently Editor, Aras News; Acting Editor, Farms and Gardens, agriculture publication of the Manila Chronicle; and Special Assistant on Planning and Operations to Atty. Ramon P. Binamira, considered as the country’s Father of Community Development.

Community development

In this latter position, he worked with some of the pioneers of the country’s community development program, known as Presidential Assistant on Community Development (PACD) of the early 1950s, under President Ramon Magsaysay, who were by this time all retired; some of them had been working in community development programs in other Asian countries, such as Vietnam and Laos. They were recruited to serve as trainers and field operations staff of Project Compassion, a pilot project on the integration of services from private sector entities created to complement similar government efforts, under the then First Lady, Imelda R. Marcos, primarily with her agency, the Ministry of Human Settlements.

The initiative, carried out in several provinces and cities, pilot-tested an approach to the delivery of services from four non-government entities (Nutrition Center of the Philippines, Population Center of the Philippines; Environmental Center of the Philippines; Green Revolution or ) utilizing 20-family units trained to serve as single-delivery system for such services under a local volunteer leader. Atty. Binamira was appointed Executive Director of Project Compassion to oversee the implementation of the pilot program on integrated services.

As assistant to the Executive Director, he served concurrently as Chief, Planning and Communication Division and Head, Operations Review Center. He coordinated the assessment of community development approaches in the country; the analyis of lessons learned; and formulation of a new approach to community development which came to be known as the “Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life)” or the upper jaw-lower jaw or jawbone approach which features the collaboration of local governments and organized community groups at each step of the planning, implementation and monitoring process.

The UNICEF International Board recognized Project Compassion and the Ilaw approach as a valid application of the global Basic Services Strategy advocated by the UN to catalyze community-local collaboration in development work with focus on child-based services. His proposal to establish the Ilaw International Center in Bohol as the institution to replicate it was approved by UNICEF in 1982. Subsequently, he was appointed as Resident Director of this independent non-government entity separate from Project Compassion under the office of the First Lady.

The IIC staff carried out a nation-wide fundraising campaign to pay for the construction of the IIC, while UNICEF funded the training expenses. For almost a decade, the UNICEF-assisted facility trained volunteers and project staff who, in turn, trained government workers, project staff and community volunteers at village level on how to implement the approach.

The IIC staff themselves implemented projects in specific villages to demonstrate how to organize neighborhood associations to be partners of local governments at municipal and village level in the planning, implementation and monitoring of projects with focus on the welfare of children and other disadvantaged groups. UNICEF sponsored the training of participants not only from the Philippines but also from other countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Indonesia and Pakistan.

For the period 1989 to 2017, a total of 28 years, he served in 14 countries either as technical staff or consultant in various poverty reduction and local governance projects funded by international organizations, such as UNDP, World Bank, UNICEF, EU, Habitat for Humanity International, CIDA, USAID and AusAID. Soon after retirement from UNDP South Pacific in December 2001, where he worked for 13 years in relatively disadvantaged island or atoll countries as community development specialist and eventually Chief Technical Adviser (CTA) in Solomon Islands, he founded Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF) which conceptualized, pilot-tested and developed several versions over a ten-year period, a pro-poor targeting tool known as the Poverty Database Monitoring System (PDMS).

Poverty Reduction and Local Governance

With technical assistance from a British volunteer, Tony Irving and his local IT counterparts, PDMS was pilot-tested and used in Bohol and replicated in several municipalities and cities in the Philippines, Timor Leste, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, India, and Bhutan with funding assistance by EU, UNDP, the British Embassy and Habitat for Humanity International. PDMS was one of the tools used by the Provincial Government and its partner organizations in helping Bohol get out of the list of the country’s 20 poorest provinces during this period.

He pioneered the application of the Asset-Based Community Development or ABCD approach in Bohol first developed in Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and promoted its use in community livelihood projects starting in 2007 in several municipalities in Bohol. Rather than consider the two approaches as mutually exclusive strategies in poverty reduction, he and BLDF promoted PDMS and ABCD as complementary methodologies in efforts to reach disadvantaged local communities and households to identify specific target groups and their needs and mobilize their skills and other local assets to address constraints brought about by poverty and severe underdevelopment.

Localizing development

In Bohol, he has been involved in more than 15 donor-assisted projects which represent efforts to engage local communities and households in the overall development framework of poverty reduction and sustainable development promoted by the provincial and local government units. Each project has evolved eventually to yield lessons in linking entrepreneurship to community development and local capacity-building initiatives with focus on child rights and welfare and improving collaborative project planning and implementation processes among other disadvantaged groups, such as out-of-school youth.

The most recent involvement of Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF) under his leadership included the following:

-planning and implementation of the Community-Based Shelter Assistance Project which succeeded to demonstrate how to build 150 core transition houses to move vulnerable family members (the elderly, women, disabled or sick family members, children) from insecure tents, built in the aftermath of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake which hit the province on 15 October 20115, using public contributions and the expertise of local carpenters;

-preparation and implementation of livelihood projects under the framework of Informal Employment and Sustainable Livelihood (IESL) which identifies local assets and skills in entrepreneural activities;

-coalition building to generate local resources which led eventually to the establishment of the first drug rehabilitation center in the province in cooperation with two similar facilities in Cebu City and Ozamis City in response to an urgent social need in the wake of the government-led campaign against illegal drug use;

-pilot-testing in a municipality, Baclayon, Bohol, a systematic and humane approach to the situation of surrenderees through the Database Plus Interventions Project for Surrenderees (DIPS); and, based on this approach,

-preparation of a project proposal voted as choice number 1 in barangay polls conducted in May 2017 to determine which deserves funding support as part of the I-Budget Natin Project, an initiative under the auspices of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability-East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP), the International Center for Innovation, Transformation, and Excellence (INCITEGov), Making All Voices Count (MAVC) and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP).

His project experiences have been documented in various articles and papers in UN publications and other media and in two books, Old Warrior and Other Poems and Old Warrior’s Poems and the Bohol Quake Assistance Story.

Values formation

Recognizing the vital role of values on the part of key participants in the project planning, implementation and monitoring process, including political and informal community leaders, target local communities and households, he is now involved in collaboration with the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) in transforming the family-owned Balay Kahayag (Light of Life) Training and Retreat Center, into a

Learning Site for Agriculture and Extension Service Provider (LSA-ESP) as well as a Social Action Center to reach out to marginalized farmers and families to involve them in entrepreneural activities in ways that will will also preserve the environment as well as reenforce social cohesiveness among those involved in the agriculture center.

A SUMMING UP OF HIS DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY

Dr. Nestor Maniebo Pestelos has devoted his entire life and career to addressing poverty in ways that ensure sustainable human development and promote social cohesion and community empowerment, as evidenced by the outputs of plans and projects he has been involved in during the past 53 years, 1967 to 2020 of professional work in promoting community development, entrepreneurship and effective local governance.

In all these projects, he advocated for the use of community development approaches and tools field-tested, developed and documented under his watch primarily with two NGOs, the Ilaw International Center and the Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. during five decades of professional development work in specific municipalities and cities in a total of 15 countries (Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Palau, Tuvalu, Marshal Islands, Western Samoa, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Bhutan, India, Bangladesh, Philippines in the Asia Pacific region; and Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

The key milestones in his professional work are as follows:

The Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life) methodology and approach to community development, documented in several studies by academic institutions and international donors and recognized globally as an innovative application of the basic services strategy by the UNICEF Board;

Training modules and community organizing approaches in unique geographic locations as contrasted to areas defined by political boundaries, in the World Bank-funded Central Visayas Regional Project;

Child-based concerns as entry points for community organizing in conflict areas, as in those remote mountain villages under the influence and control of armed anti-government elements in Bohol and other provinces considered as the country’s poorest in the 1980s (Maguindanao, Negros Occidental, Ifugao, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and Camarines Norte . Convergence of Child-Based Services, UNICEF.

Use of local resource base for catalyzing partnership between local government units and target communities in joint planning and collaboration (Catanduanes, Samar, Leyte). Local Resource Management Project funded by USAID:

Localized human development strategies and programs for remote and isolated atoll countries with focus on livelihood and environment-friendly technologies. (Developed and implemented in 10 South Pacific and in the Maldives; UNDP).

Integrated area development approaches for the promotion of MSMEs and Gender Equality. (Local Governance Support Program for Local Economic Development; LGSP-LED CIDA).

Development of a pro-poor planning tool, Poverty Database and Monitoring System (PDMS) over a ten-year period, and its eventual integration with ecoBUDGET in local-level planning initially in Bohol and replicated in other Asian countries – Rajshahi, Bangladesh; Guntur, India; and Thimphu, Bhutan. An EU-assisted project.

Promotion and application of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) as an alternative to the conventional deficit or problem-oriented planning approach in local-level development. (Pilot-tested in 2007 in several municipalities in Bohol with technical assistance from Boston Colleges).

Mobilizing Support to Address a Crisis Caused by a Magnitude 7.2 Earthquake

Less than a week after the magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Bohol on 15 October 2013, he organized the Bohol Quake Assistance Fund Drive with BLDF and its key partners Miriam College and Peacock Garden Spa and Resort. Funds were raised from private sector entities, individuals in the Philippines and abroad, including friends and relatives.

He used primarily his Facebook page to solicit donations and to report on how the funds were used, which families were assisted and more importantly, what further assistance was received from faith-based organizations, local government units, and other entities to augment the donations initially received. He wrote a book of poems, Old Warrior and Other Poems, with the proceeds earmarked to support the community-based house build project of BLDF.

Through the BQA Fund Drive, BLDF was able to provide construction materials to 150 families, and out of this number, directly partnered with 138 families in the building and repair of core houses in underserved barangays in the municipalities of Antequera, Calape, Maribojoc and Baclayon. In most project sites, it worked with Oxfam and the Catholic Relief Services to provide families with proper water and sanitation facilities. BLDF focused on families whose houses were totally destroyed and whose vulnerable members, i.e. the elderly, women and children and the disabled needed to be moved out from tents and other makeshift structure.

When the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) announced in August 2014 that it would release funding to enable Habitat for Humanity Philippines to build more than 6,000 permanent houses, BLDF decided to launch a new program thrust, Informal Employment and Sustainable Livelihood (IESL) to complement the rebuilding efforts.

As their vital contribution to rebuilding efforts in areas devastated by natural calamities, and to address a need to ensure job creation in a situation where economic growth cannot create jobs to match available labor force in formal employment, BLDF and its key partners decided to demonstrate the vital role of IESL to enable families and communities to cope with social problems brought about by poverty, e.g. crimes, prevalent drug addiction among the youth, homelessness, to name a few.

Thus under his leadership, BLDF shifted its program focus from implementing a community-based shelter assistance project to the promotion of informal employment and sustainable livelihood among the youth, particularly those who are out of school or those in Alternative Learning Systems (ALS). It has partnered with ALS and a private sector entity, Duce Air Conditioning, in implementing projects such as the Mountain Bikes Cultural Tour and the Youth Skills Training projects.

Youth Drug Rehabilitation Assistance Program

In less than a year of implementing projects for the out-of-school youth, the BLDF President became convinced that the organization could not ignore the drug abuse problem which is causing deaths and injuries to a growing number of people in Bohol. If not addressed effectively, the drug menace would negate the gains made in previous decades of painstaking development work in the province.

Since early 2014, Bohol province has become a major transshipment point, as well as primary destination in the Central Visayas Region for illegal drugs. As a result, drug pushers and their victims have increased quite significantly during the period.

Drug-related killings and other heinous crimes, such as rape (in one case, a mother was raped by her own son who is a drug addict); physical assault, theft and robbery have become common reading fare in local papers. Since 2014, based on the latest count, more than 100 drug pushers have been shot dead or wounded in broad daylight, in busy streets of Tagbilaran City and in the towns, in a province which used to have a reputation as being crime-free and among the country’s most peaceful places.

Official figures show 70% of crimes committed in the province are drug-related. Alcoholism and drug-induced mental health cases are getting to be rampant mostly among the youth. Most families with members affected with substance abuse and other addictions cannot afford the high costs of treatment, transportation and other associated costs in drug rehabilitation facilities in Cebu, Manila, Cavite, Davao and other cities in Mindanao.

If they remain untreated, this increasing number of individuals with drug and other forms of addiction will lead to more crimes in the future.

As early as November, 2014, Dr. Pestelos led a team to conduct consultations, as well as actual visits to six (6) rehabilitation centers in the Visayas and Mindanao, where drug abuse victims from Bohol go for treatment. The study team saw the need to establish in Bohol a rehabilitation center which would combine community-based approaches with cost-effective clinical methods and a humanitarian and eclectic strategy to deal with hundreds of drug users who now inhabit practically all the barangays in the province.

He negotiated successfully with two of the drug rehabilitation centers the team visited, the Family and Recovery Management (FARM) center in Minglanilla, Cebu and the It Works Chemical Dependency Center in Ozamiz City, that they agreed to combine technical and funding resources to operate Bohol’s first drug rehabilitation center.

Known as the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, it is located at the sprawling BK training facility consisting of a multi-purpose hall good for 100 participants; a dormitory for 38 occupants; a function room; a kitchen; and a two-storey staff house.It started operating in early November with six (6) clients, employees of a company who tested positive for drug during required routine tests. In only four months after its opening, the number of clients increased to 23, with requests for admission more than what it could handle.

Dr. Pestelos and his NGO teamed up with the Diocese of Tagbilaran to raise funds to enable drug dependents from indigent families to have access to the services of the first drug rehabilitation center in the province. After 18 months of operation, the center was able to treat more than 30 clients, mostly from poor families. It ceased operations because the Center could not be given permanent license since it was made of relatively light and indigenous materials.

Livelihood Assistance to Out-of-School Youth

Since Novermber, 2017, BLDF resumed its old advocacy to support out-of-school youth with provision of livelihood skills and funding assistance. Plans are being prepared to enable Balay Kahayag to serve both as a training and meditation center dedicated to imparting both skills and values to economically disadvantaged families with focus on women and the youth.

Since Novermber, 2017, BLDF resumed its old advocacy to support out-of-school youth with provision of livelihood skills and funding assistance. Plans were prepared to enable Balay Kahayag to serve both as a training and meditation center dedicated to imparting both skills and values to economically disadvantaged families with focus on women and the youth.

Kahayag Learning Site for Agriculture and Social Action Center

On November 11, 2020, the Central Visayas Regional Office of the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Pestelos family to help convert Balay Kahayag as a Learning Site for Agriculture and Social Action Center focused on the promotion of agroforestry and entrepreneurship among disadvantaged groups and communities.

The Center will mobilize out-of-school youth to engage in beekeeping and agroforestry practices aimed to ensure food production in ways that conserve and enhance environmental resources. In promoting entrepreneurship among the youth, the Kahayag Learning Site and Social Action Center will build on the initiative at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to encourage and support unemployed youth to engage in vegetable gardening and and small-scale farming to ensure their survival during and after this pandemic.

Indee a new phase has begun in this development journey. ###

CERTIFIED TRUE AND CORRECT:

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Barangay Laya, Baclayon, Bohol

13 July 2021/12.12 p.m.

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 10:31:00 +0000

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH – UNO Award

Note: Delivered during the virtual presentation of the Upsilon Sigma Phi’s Outstanding and Noble (UNO) Award on 20 February 2021.

Thank you for choosing me as a recipient of the UNO Award. Let me now share with you what I recall in my development journey since I joined the Fraternity fifty-eight years ago:

I recall joining our fraternity as a young man eager to know about life, real life, the Upsilon way. Like other neophytes, I was made to recite the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling in a number of unique situations, for example, while holding a mosquito net at one end to induce sleep among some fraternity members;

I recall being advised by several alumni and resident fellows to temporarily abandon reading books and exert more efforts to understand life by living it to the hilt, from direct experiences, rather than from books;

I recall being mentored to serve as stage hand and act in cameo roles in several plays, the theatre being a monopoly of the Upsilon in those days, to be confident, as though I am the leading actor;

I recall joining all sorts of contests, impromptu speaking, debates, and winning honor for myself and the fraternity and, in the process, getting out of my bookish self and be more active in campus activities;

I recall serving as editor of the campus paper for two terms, the first time that it happened, and founded in the process, to the delight of fraternity brothers, Tangent, the first and only literary paper of the then UP College of Agriculture which dealt with contemporary issues and thus helped boost the reputation of the Fraternity as a socially relevant organization;

I recall that during this period of intellectual ferment and clamor for the University to be socially relevant, our fraternity transformed the then Student Party into Partido Kaunlaran with pronounced nationalist orientation inspired by the teachings of modern-day historians such as Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Constantino;

I recall that during this period of the late Sixties, a new wave of nationalism set in, more militant than the previous one, this time inspired by Mao Tse-tung and other Marxist thinkers as well as by protest movements which emerged in other parts of the world.

I recall that during this period, a number of fraternity brothers joined both the legal movement and the underground, in pursuit of ideals shared with the greater Upsilon community but translated into various ways in accordance with individual perceptions and preferences, under the popular mantra of the day, “Serve the People.”

I recall doing time as lecturer or discussion group leader for several months on Philippine Society and Revolution and the three isms, Feudalism, Imperialism, and Bureaucrat Capitalism in a semi-liberated area of Sierra Madre as security measure so I could be invisible to the military and its intelligence agents in town centers and cities;

I recall getting arrested and put behind bars in a military camp, interrogated but not tortured, and allowed to live and work at the Nayong Pilipino, as information officer for the Green Revolution, one of the pet projects of the then First Lady, Mrs. Imelda Marcos.

I recall how I recovered from this relative isolation for six years at the Nayong Pilipino to craft and implement a strategy that enabled me with the help of close friends to continue my studies; find employment, and resume development work in the poorest communities in the Philippines and 13 other countries in the Pacific and faraway Maldives in the Indian Ocean;

I recall how I came to settle in Bohol, far from my native Quezon province determined to seek more innovative ways to reach the poor and continue with much-needed efforts to help liberate them from what we called at that time the “constraints of underdevelopment,” with provision of social services, including livelihood assistance, but this time with their genuine commitment and participaion.

I think this story is consistent with what Upsilonians aspire for in reciting our Credo and the poem IF – which is to to find courage and true grit in pursuing a dream “to help create a better world,” if I may be allowed to say it in a grand manner on this occasion.

Finally, I believe that the Upsilon Sigma Phi should remain a microcosm of the larger University, a marketplace of ideas, a citadel of freedom and liberalism where we could subscribe to varying schools of thought and ideologies but we must uphold adherence to the truth, social justice and equality.

Hence, I dedicate this award to all of you who share a common dream for our University, country and people and, guided by the light of wisdom and courage, continue to show true grit in pursuing a vision of peace and prosperity for all.

Thank you and have a good day ###

NMP/07 Feb 2021/11,24 a.m.

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:21:00 +0000

SUMMARY OF AWARDS RECEIVED:

2015 Rappler Award as Enterprise Mover

2015 UP Los Banos Outstanding Alumni Award for Community Service and Local Governance

Quezon Medalya ng Karangalan Award for Public Service-Community Development 

Gawad Kadakilaan Award - YouthLead Philippines 

University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) Distinguished Alumni Award in Poverty Alleviation and Human Development 

Upsilon Sigma Phi Noble and Outstanding (UNO ) Award

Finally, much thanks, Lord for helping me in this journey. #oldwarriorandotherpoems #coalitionforadrugfreebohol #thehouseofilawngbuhay #boholquakeassistance #balaykahayag #bldf

Our Mission - Spreading love to others

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 07:26:00 +0000

MESSAGE

For the Class 58 Reunion, Quezon Provincial High School

By: NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

As almost everyone knows, we live nowadays in interesting times, more challenging than life in the 1950s when we were students at the old Quezon High. Now in our late 70s, we must have grappled with survival issues and often it must have been difficult to give advice to the generations much younger than us. A post sent through Facebook by a friend sums up the current global situation depicted in a cartoon in which a student asks:

“Teacher ... could we learn how to survive in a civilization threatened by ecosystem collapse, rising sea levels and the resulting geo-political turmoil around conflict and the increasing polarization of ideological orientation, and humanity’s seemingly insatiable appetite for stuff.”

The cartoon does not show how the teacher has responded. It is safe to assume that like her, we are oftentimes dumbfounded and shocked by our own tendency to create conflicts in our family, community, organization, everywhere inhabited by the superior being scientifically labeled Homo sapiens supposed to be the most advanced creation of God and nature.

Advances in science and technology have not been accompanied by enhanced wisdom in both international and personal relations. The milestones achieved in scientific knowledge have not been matched by greater wisdom in leading the good life, in bringing peace and prosperity to the planet we inhabit. In fact, it has been said by many scientists and philosophers that the human race is on the road to perdition, destroying the natural resources we have inherited from the Creator and the institutions and cultural practices human communities themselves designed based on actual experiences and reflections embedded in centuries of evolution by ethics and religions in various cultural and geopolitical contexts.

Drug abuse has become a global concern. Equally disturbing, suicide cases have increased both globally and locally indicating despair and loss of faith particularly among the young. Every 40 seconds, a person resorts to suicide somewhere in the world. Every 3 seconds, a person attempts to die. More than 800,000 persons of the suicide cases in the world are due to depression.

In the Philippines, during the period 1984 to 2005, suicide cases increased from 0.7 to 9% per 200,000 population. The highest increase in suicide are among age groups 5-14 and 15-24.By all indications, suicide cases have increased among the young in recent years. We who belong to the old generations have failed to inspire them and guide them well enough to prevent the young from taking their own life out of despair and depression.

We who are now in our 70s must share in this burden of guilt in what is happening in our country and the world. Truly old us we are. let us bring back the glory of being alive, that “splendor in the grass” we used to recite in our high school days. In the remaining years of our life, let us continue to help create a better world by making our families closer together, resilient against the forces of evil that now threaten life in this our planet.

In our final years on earth, let us reduce our universe in one block, as it has been reduced due to our limited strength and failing health, but let us continue to bring the light of hope in our own family and local communities by spreading love. In John 4:16, it is said: “God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” ###

Reaching the Unreached Through UN-Assisted Projects:

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Sat, 02 Nov 2019 23:51:00 +0000

REACHING THE UNREACHED THROUGH UN-ASSISTED PROJECTS :

I had my first experience getting involved with UN-assisted projects in early 1974 when I was transferred from a military camp where I had stayed for three months serving a prison term as a detainee under the Martial Law regime of President Ferdinand Marcos to Nayong Pilipino, a sprawling national park of sort near the Manila International Airport highlighting products from the country’s dozen or so regions. and where the offices of projects identified with the First Lady, Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos, were located.

These projects included the Green Revolution, which promoted backyard food production in support of the country’s child nutrition program; Environmental Center of the Philippines, which sought to create broad public awareness about the importance of protecting the environment largely through health and sanitation measures at that time, such as making sure that each household has toilets, potable water supply and facilities for garbage collection and disposal; and Project Compassion which aimed to integrate services from these programs and those from other agencies under the First Lady (Nutrition Center of the Philippines; Population Center of the Philippines) into an integrated package in response to local government plans and those articulated by local communities.

Project Compassion

Atty. Ramon P. Binamira, directly serving under the First Lady’s office, was designated head of Project Compassion to bring about this much-desired integration of social services. He was known as the country’s Father of Community Development, having served as the country’s first Presidential Assistant for Community Development (PACD), under then Pres. Ramon Magsaysay in the 1950s, a pioneering effort to bring systematically government services to the remote rural villages more than ten kilometers or so from the town center, where government offices were mostly located.

I was appointed Information Officer for the Green Revolution Program and less than a year later, concurrently, as Special Assistant on Planning and Operations at the office of Atty. Binamira. In this latter position, I had to work with pioneers of the country’s community development program, around thirty (30} of them, who had by this time retired. Some of them had served in other countries, such as Vietnam and Laos. Under Project Compassion, they were recruited and assigned as trainers and community organizers to field-test and coordinate efforts to bring about integration of services in several provinces and cities primarily to complement similar government efforts under the then Ministry of Human Settlements, a pet project of the First Lady, Imelda R. Marcos.

They were around 15 years older than I was during that time. All of us shared one thing in common during this initial period of Project Compassion: our projects classified as under the private sector were not given government budget. We did not have enough money for our salary and to implement our plans to bring about the envisioned integration of social services. I remember during this time we were allowed to use the First Lady’s name to conduct fund raising campaigns for Project Compassion and its component projects.

Fund Raising for a Cause

For almost a year, we functioned as a fund-raising entity as we went around the country to raise money and conduct awareness meetings about the need for the integration of services “to deliver social services to the doorstep of each family, “ a phrase we used in those days to describe our mission. Some of the fund-rasing activities we undertook include the following: a one peso donation drive which featured selling tickets raffled on national TV with the country’s movie stars and with prizes from corporate donors; a boxing champonship match; production of a commercial movie, “Sapin Sapin Patong Patong,” which served as vehicle for family planning messages, starring the country’s most popular love team; and cockfighting in key towns and cities.

I recall that we put the PHP 10 million raised through these fund raising activities to a trust fund and we agreed to use the interest in paying for our salaries and travel expenses to project sites in pilot cities and municipalities all over the country. We did not have funds for training and field operations activities, such as monitoring; consultations with local leaders; organizing neighborhood or local associations; setting up small-scale demonstration projects, such as homeyard gardens; emergency food assistance to malnourished children.

Linkage with UNICEF

That was how UNICEF Manila came to the rescue. Our friends from the national planning body, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), introduced us to the staff of this international organization Their program officers were mostly Filipinos which made it easier to relate with them. The UNICEF Representative at that time, Dr. Wah Wong, became interested in what we were doing when he learned that our community development activities could reach children in remote villages. He went with us to some villages in the interior towns of in two provinces, Quezon and Camarines Norte, and saw the need for additional weighing scales used for Operation Timbang . He promptly had them delivered to our field workers within two weeks.

Starting 1976, program officers from UNICEF Manila accompanied field workers from Project Compassion in the conduct of child nutrition activities, such as weighing of children; promotion of breastfeeding; and feeding of malnourished children. UNICEF assistance began to trickle in to support these activities. Dr. Wah Wong and the program staff were attracted to the mission of Project Compassion to “reach the unreached” through organizing local communities themselves and training them through their local leaders to mobilize families through their neighborhood associations.

The whole barangay or village was organized into 20-family units, and their Unit Leaders, chosen by the member families themselves, were trained by the project on the basics of planning and service delivery. During this time, there was a global preoccupation on so-called barefoot volunteers or workers to link communities to the service delivery system of government and their partner NGO or private sector counterpart. I recall Atty. Binamira telling the staff that Mrs. Marcos was quite elated upon learning about the project using trained Unit Leaders in distributing nutrition food packs, seeds or seedling for backyard gardens, condoms and pills, and other commoditiies, etc. because this was like what she saw during her visit to China – the use of local volunteers or “barefoot workers” as part of the government’s extension services in the rural areas.

I recall that UNICEF Manila commissioned a non-government research group, the Sinag research team, to document the participatory process and the impact of mobilizing local volunteers to the service coverage of nutrition and other social programs. The study was able to prove that the service delivery coverage improved significantly with the recruitment, training and deployment of these “barefoot workers” from the local communities.

In 1977, Project Compassion’s project sites were included in the itinerary of members of the International Board of UNICEF during their meeting in Manila. The Board concluded after the visit to various sites in the country that the Project Compassion approach to the delivery of services for children was in line with the Basic Services Strategy being promoted globally at that time by the UN which stressed the importance of community involvement and participation in the planning and implementation of child-focused projects.

Involvement with GOP-UNICEF Country Program for Children

Soon after this event, I was assigned to represent Project Compassion in the Technical Working Group preparing the four-year Government of the Philippines – UNICEF Country Program for Children (CPC 1). I recall that my assignment was to review the participatory aspect of proposals submitted by government and NGOs seeking funding from UNICEF. Due to my involvement for almost a year in CPC 1, I came to understand the planning process regarding social development promoted by UNICEF and began to appreciate the tasks and functions of planning officers of various government agencies involved in planning for child rights and welfare.

On account of my role within the technical working group as a resource person on social mobilization and community development, I was allowed by the military to join meetings outside Nayong Pilipino and to participate in workshops and field trips to other cities and municipalities outside Metro Manila. When a task force was formed for multisectoral consultations in all the country’s twelve regions, I was included to give first-hand account of how to use what we called child focus in justifying service delivery in remote villages in various geographic locations such as mountains; isolated islands; and densely-populated but equally neglected slum urban areas or those communities occupied by people known as squatters or euphemistically classified as informal settlers in planning documents.

This advocacy for participatory development through focus on the child helped us organize communities despite the restrictions imposed by the martial law regime on all forms of organizing efforts. It will be recalled that an assembly of more than three people could be declared illegal during that time. By talking about infant mortality, child malnutrition, school drop-out rate and other child-based indicators, we were allowed to organize communities from the purok or neighborhood level to the barangay or village level.

In 1978, UNICEF Manila provided funds to enable Project Compassion to conduct a study on community development approaches implemented in the country; identify their respective strengths and weaknesses; and recommend ways to modify, if necessary, its practices. For three months, all its fieldworkers most of whom were considered pioneers starting with the PACD in the 1950s, met at the Nayong Pilipino. Resource persons from UP Los Banos, Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and other NGOs were invited to share their experiences and lessons. Project Compassion and UNICEF program officers together assessed the lessons learned and field-tested new ideas in organizing communities in several barangays in Lucena City and Candelaria City.

Birth of Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life) Approach

The approach which resulted from such collaboration was an operations manual for a modified approach to the practice of community development in the country called the “Ilaw ng Buhay” (Light of Life) sometimes termed as CO-CD which combines community organizing with the standard community development strategy of linking communities and families to service providers from the sectoral agencies of the Government. The child focus as entry point in community organizing featured use of child-based indicators as malnutrition, infant mortality, and school drop-out were given priority through inclusion in household surveys, training and local planning inputs.

Three 20-family units of Project Compassion were combined to make up a chapter of Ilaw ng Buhay with members voting for their officers who were eventually trained by the mobile core team of trainers from Project Compassion and UNICEF program officers and their local counterparts from relevant LGU partners, such as the religious and private sectors. Existing training modules were revised based on this modified approach to organizing local communities and training the Ilaw ng Buhay chapters.

By 1981, Project Compassion was recognized as one of the country’s quite visible demonstration of community participation in the planning and implementation of child-based programs. This was apparent in the number of invitations received by Atty. Binamira to speak in UNICEF-sponsored fora promoting the Basic Services Strategy of the UN in the country and abroad. During the period,

UNICEF Manila assigned a number of Filipino program officers to work hand in hand with the staff in encouraging local governments to formulate, implement and monitor child-based programs.

Through the Country Program for Children, UNICEF progressively supported Project Compassion with funding for the expansion of its coverage areas. I can still recall the names of UNICEF program officers assigned to Project Compassion during this critical period of Project Compassion’s growth: Willy Castillo, Bituin Gonzales, Brenda Vigo, Richard Prado and Wilfred D’Silva; the last one was the only non-Filipino in the group, a Bangladeshi, who was Deputy Resident Representative, Dr. Pratima Kale, an Indian national, who understood what we were all trying to do, generating people’s participation, under a hostile poltical situation.

At around this time, too, I gained full freedom. I did not have to get permission to attend meetings or to travel outside Metro Manila. I could finally say goodbye to the floors at the Green Revolution office I was sleeping on; the Quezon Display booth I lived in during the last two years of my six-year stay in this Nayong Pilipino Complex adjacent to the Domestic Airport, and, hence, goodbye to the deepening noise of planes during take-off and when their engines had to be warmed up; the sight of men in military uniform all over the place when top officials and foreign dignitaries and their families and staff whiled away their time prior to their arrivals and departures; goodbye to all the fear and trembling caused by thoughts about an uncertain future and the need to take care of my Mother, Grandmother and sister whom I left behind so be part of a mass movement which made heroes of 33 of my close friends in what we wrongly thought as the right way to ignite the Great Proletarian Revolution, “encircling the cities from the countryside,” as we used to say as regular mantra to quiet the pangs of hunger rapidly creeping in to wrap our souls in dread and deep longing for home ...

Cecilio Adorna, who by this time, had been recruited to join the regional office in Bangkok, managed to arrange my initial consultancies abroad. Subsequently, UNICEF Manila gave me travel grants and scholarships to enable me to “to mend my academic fences,” as Regional Deputy Rep D’Silva and the staff used to say during my post-detention days. I was sent to attend short-term courses at the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) in Comilla, Bangladesh and the University of Bradford in England. I continued to serve as volunteer member of the Country Program for Children, this time as head of the monitoring committee composed of NGOs and government agencies coordinated by NEDA.

Ilaw International Center

While I was about to apply for graduate study at the University of Swansea, I was informed by UNICEF Manila that the proposal submitted to the Technical Working Group prior to my departure for England, was approved. I had no choice but to come back and postponed implementation of the UNICEF-approved study plan.

I arrived in Tagbilaran City on 08 November 1982 with instruction from Atty. Binamira to oversee implementation of the project which sought to build the Ilaw International Center (IIC) as repository of experiences and lessons on participatory community development using child-based concerns as the entry point in local mobilization. While construction was going on a piece of land bought with the city government of Tagbilaran serving as mediators with landowners to ensure lower prices, our five-member core team with UNICEF program officer Bituin Gonzalez as adviser, proceeded to refine further the operations and training manuals during the shift from traditional CD to the CO-CD methodology otherwise known as the upper jaw-lower jaw approach, with the upper jaw representing local government and the lower jaw, the local community.

More funding resources were allocated to the “lower jaw” since it was observed that while local governments were better organized, its supposed partner, the local community was less so and increasingly subjected to all kinds of partisanship such as, political, religious, clan or family affiliations. This divisiveness was perceived as the key constraint to building community-local government collaboration in addressing child-based and other concerns.

It was decided by Atty. Binamira and the staff to organize IIC as independent entity separate from those under Mrs. Marcos to avoid being the target of political forces opposing the Marcos regime. This was easily done because IIC carried out its fundraising activities this time without invoking the First Lady’s name.

With the construction of IIC completed in mid-1983, it became operational immediately with trainees from UNICEF-assisted projects not only from the Philippines but also abroad, such as Yemen, Bhutan and Pakistan. Other donors sent participants from their projects to attend either orientation or skills training courses under the main module on Appropriate Community Development (ACD) which incorporates topics on child rights and development in all the course offerings.

These donor agencies included World Bank with training and community immersion component handled by IIC for the project, Central Visayas Regional Project (CVRP), which focused on local institution building in remote areas, such as nearshore fishing communities; upland and lowland areas; watersheds; and isolated islands.

Other projects implemented by IIC during the period included the following: Agro-marine and Forestry Project (USAID); Local Resource Management Project (AusAID); Remote Island Development Project (AusAID); and a family planning project (UNFPA).

UNICEF support to IIC consisted of funds for training; motorcycles for the field team; vehicles for the transport of participants from remote barangays; equipment for monitoring and documentation. UNICEF program officers continued to be assigned on monitoring visits to the center and its project sites and provided technical assistance on the child welfare component fo projects implemented by other donors. UNICEF Country Representatives Steve Umemoto and Pratima Kale gave full support to our transition from being a high-profile community development project of the Marcos regime to being a pioneering trainsing institution on modified approach to community development through the IIC.

The IIC served at this time as advocacy tool to show to policymakers and planners at various levels how to operationalize community-government partnership consistent with the advocacy for planning and implementing the Basic Services Strategy promoted by the UN at that time. Prime Minister Cesar Virata was among those who visited IIC during its early years accompanied by members of the Cabinet. Ambassadors from the US, New Zealand and Australia also visited IIC and were briefed on the integration of of child-based concerns in projects they supported at that time.

The IIC staff and UNICEF program officers went on joint field missions for the preparatory work on the Area-Based Child Survival and Development Project (ABCSD), which identified the most disadvantaged municipalities and cities of the country’s eight (8) poorest provinces. Because these provinces were remote, opposition to the martial law and the Left had a strong presence in these areas. The child focus in our development stragege became a handy tool to enable us to do our community work without inviting suspicion from the Government. Indeed our NEDA friends joked that we came to these places to save children, but it was actually the advocacy for child rights, welfare and survival that would shield us from the suspicion of the military that we were working against the martial law regime.

In 1986, I was supposed to go on a UNICEF scholarship to the US but my mother became sick and had to stay with her in our home province in Luzon. I had to take a leave of absence from IIC for three months. Instead of going back to Bohol, it was suggested by my friends from UNICEF to study for a masters degree instead at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) so it could also help me in my career should I decide to join the organization later. After finishing my course, I decided to go back to my old post as Resident Director at IIC and pursued a doctorate degree in education in a a local University also under UNICEF scholarship. My dissertations for both advanced degrees dealt with topics related to the Ilaw ng Buhay approach to development, on how a social preparation process could be implemented with child rights and welfare as the key issue for mobilizing community participation and local government support.

At this time, IIC had been part of two CPCs and most of those in our technical working group had joined UNICEF for assignment in various countries. I was offered several international posts with UNICEF but I could not leave IIC during its formative years.

From April 1988 to January 1989, I was appointed concurrently as coordinator of the NEDA-UNICEF Social Mobilization Project for Child Survival and Development which facilitated the delivery of several component subprojects (policy research and advocacy; community participation and training; public information and media support; program monitoring and evaluation) with focus on the country’s 8 poorest provinces (Maguindanao, Negros Occidental, Ifugao, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and Camarines Norte) which happened to be also areas of armed conflict. In keeping with the child focus in these areas of conflict, we sought to save the children, but in the end we realized that it was the concern for the child that won all parties to support our development mission.

Integrated Atoll Development Project

In1989, after eight years of serving as resident director of IIC, I finally got the approval to resign and join UNICEF. Unfortunately the previous posts offered to me with were no longer available. Norma Tulio, the program officer from Manila assigned to the UNICEF office in Suva, Fiji, informed me about a vacancy for Participatory Development Specialist with a UNDP-UNOPS project, the Integrated Atoll Development Project (IADP).

The head of the project, Jeff Liew, a Malaysian and ten years younger than I am, interviewed me three times over the phone and, after receiving my resume and supporting documents, appointed me to the vacant post in this new UNDP project. Of course, the recommendation from UNICEF Manila also helped.

By March that year, I was on my way to Suva, Fiji, the main office of UNDP South Pacific which oversees programs and projects for South Pacific countries, most of them in relatively isolated and small-sized atolls. It was fascinating to be told that atolls were actually formed after the volcanoes under the Pacific Ocean erupted. An atoll country is actually composed of small islands sharing a lagoon where the volcano which erupted had been.

These atoll countries where our project was mandated to do “integrated development” were Tuvalu, Kiribati, Palau, Tokelau, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia in the South Pacific, and Maldives in the Indian Ocean. I brought to this assignment the lessons and tools learned with UNICEF-assisted projects in the Philippines, including with projects funded by other donors under the auspices of the Ilaw International Center.

The mantra “Reaching the Unreached” in the context of atoll countries assumed a different dimension. Difficulties in bringing services to needy families were not only in terms of geographic location. You have also to contend with tribes or clans in conflict with one another; varying cultural and local governance practices which define procedures in the collective ownership of land and other resources; the existence of the chiefly system along side with democratic institutions introduced by foreign governments, such as those of the US, Great Britain, and France.

Our project team, some of them UN Volunteers from the Philippines, came to know a vital lesson from these atoll countries: the smaller the island, the more complex are the rules. For example, you need to know where to sit during community meetings because a specific place is assigned each family to occupy during such occasions; which door to use to enter a house and which one to to exit; where to fish or not fish depending on the season; a boat or canoe is the extension of one’s house and nobody is allowed to sit on it without the owner’s permission while on the beach and so on. All these reflect the fragility of life in small islands and, hence, any deviation from the rules may disrupt the peaceful way of life in the small islands.

We put to the test what we learned from CPCs 1 & 2, about Child Focus in local planning; social mobilization; and “walking the site,” talking to people, “starting where the people are,” and including what we used to teach our IIC community organizers and volunteers and the “Ilaw chapter officers, “Plan, Act, Reflect, Act” and repeat the process all over again.

By 1993, IADP had been implemented in all the main and outer islands of all the countries under IADP. Each one had a child-focused development plan and a list of projects in varying stages in the approval process. As in our previous experience in the Philippines, we learned that in practically all culture, there is a universal concern for the child and that using such concern as motivating factor, we could mobilize all sectors in taking the crucial steps towards integrating efforts to tackle other urgent problems, such as poverty and environmental degradation.

Equitable and Sustainable Human Development Project

From 1994 to 1997, the IADP was expanded in both coverage and program content and renamed Pacific Regional Equitable and Sustainable Human Development Project (ESHDP) implemented by both UNDP and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). The project was implemented not only in the same atoll countries, but also in several relatively bigger Pacific countries such as Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and Solomon Islands. Rather than implement only social development projects, ESHDP was mandated to promote small-scale but high-impact projects by introducing gradually entrepreneurial elements in the projects identified for support to disadvantaged groups, such as youth and women.

Rather than addressing directly the cultural constraints in promoting business activities in predominantly subsistence and egalitarian societies, we focused on what the youth and women were already doing in terms of enterprises and proceded to enhance them through introduction of new technology; marketing inputs; skills training ; and encouraging the formation of cooperatives or neighborhood associations to consolidate production and improve marketing.

ESHDP was able to show that jobless economic growth was getting to be a trend in Pacific countries and no amount of economic growth would be able to provide employment to the increasing number of young people who enter the labor market each year. In October, 1995, the project launched support to Informal Employment and Sustainable Livelihood (IESL) and won overwhelming support

In October, 1995, the project made Palau the first participating country to adopt IESL as its core development strategy. It put the country’s traditional food producers on center stage and refocused, in the process, the developmental concerns of policymakers, local government officials, as well as private sector entities, NGOs and community groups.

Through sustained information, training, action planning and actual field demonstration activities, IESL promotion resulted in the formal recognition of the vital role of local community groups and individual households in food production, and in activities to conserve, protect and enhance the environment. IESL advocacy included efforts to motivate the youth in food production both for home consumption and to add to the family income. Trained intensively by ESHDP, national trainers conducted state-level workshops to enable the 15 rural States and Koror to evolve their respective action plans on IESL. The ESHDP experience in Palau provided a template for generating policy support in all the participating countries

Development Administration and Participatory Planning Project

From 1997 to 2002, I served as UNDP Chief Technical Adviser to the Government of the Solomon Islands through a project, the Solomon Islands Development Administration and Participatory Planning Project (SIDAPP). I facilitated activities and provided technical inputs to a counterpart government team that would eventually take over responsibility at the Ministry of the Interior and Rural Development for strengthening the provincial government system.

During this period, ethnic and political differences between the capital, Honiara, and a province, Malaita, erupted into an armed conflict. Due to the absence of a UN office in the capital at that time, I was designated as provisional UN officer to represent the UN System in all efforts to mediate the conflict between the two sides. I was also assigned to provide leadership in the observance of security rules and regulations for all UN staff and volunteers. In this role, I served as member of the organizing committee during the negotiations between the two sides in the conflict held under the auspices of the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

Prior to my departure from the Solomon Islands, our project team was able to package projects valued at over a million US dollars to rehabilitate the schools damaged by the ethnic conflict; provide water supply systems to coastal and island communities; and train volunteers in community work. We were able to organize an NGO, the Rural Development Volunteers Association (RDVA), which eventually served as partner of Government in carrying out development initiatives in remote communities.

Within three months after retiring from UNDP in December 2001, I was recalled back to Solomon Islands to head an inter-agency UN committee to prepare the post-conflict harmonization plan for all UN agencies.

Back to Bohol – More Projects

On April, 2002, a few months after I returned to Bohol from this post-retirement assignment in Solomon Islands, I joined the Provincial Government as Consultant on Governance and Poverty Reduction as response to the need to improve delivery of services to families in 17 municipalities considered as poorest. These municipalities also happened to be areas with armed insurgency problem which indicated the close links of poverty to the presence of strong opposition to Government.

My initial task was to provide technical assistance in the formulation of a common framework for poverty reduction as guide to LGUs, provincial and national government agencies, civil society institutions and private sector entities in a) knowing precisely who are the poor, where they live, what services are already reaching them; b) identifying projects specifically reaching these disadvantaged households, communities and groups; c) what outreach mechanisms are actually reaching them or which ones can be used to ensure that services reach them; and d) who are the neediest among them who deserve to get assistance taking into account limited resources.

In July 2003, I organized a team within the planning office and recruited a VSO volunteer from England, Tony Irving, to serve as Senior IT Expert in the design of a software to address problems commonly met in service delivery and for LGUs to have a user-friendly pro-poor planning tool. Known as Poverty Database and Monitoring System (PDMS), the software makes it possible to rank municipalities, barangays, puroks and households in terms of levels of deprivation using core poverty indicators based on the global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

That same year, I founded the Bohol Local Development Foundation, Inc. (BLDF) as partner organization of the Provincial and Local Govnment Units in the use of tools developed by the former, including PDMS. Starting in 2004, the province conducted PDMS household survey every three years to coincide with the term of the new set of Muncipal and Barangay officers. In January 2004, I was appointed head of the Bohol Provincial Poverty Reduction Management Office (BPRMO) so I could exercise formal authority in the use of PDMS in local-level planning and service delivery with focus on those areas heavily influenced or controlled by the armed insurgents.

PDMS was cited as one of the tools that made it possible for the province to get out of the country’s list of 20 poorest provinces. Also, by 2007, the armed insurgency was reduced to zero as more poor families were targeted through PDMS and received much-needed government services. The rebels were deprived of their mass base. That same year, BLDF pioneered the application of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach first developed in Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and promoted its use to complement PDMS as poverty targeting tool.

Rather than consider ABCD and PDMS to be representing mutually exclusing strategies in addressing poverty, as in the US, Australia and other countried, we promoted both as complementary methodologies in efforts to reach disadvantaged local communities and households. While specific target groups are identified and the relative seriousness of their poverty needs established, their skills and other assets are also taken into account and utilized to address constraints brought about by poverty and severe underdevelopment.

From March 2005 to February 2007, I was appointed Regional Program Manager for

Southeast Asia, Habitat for Humanity International, to provide supervision and technical

support to the staff and volunteers mostly from the Philippines who were assigned

during the post-tsunami relief and rehabilitation operations in Bandah Aceh, Indonesia.

Subsequently, From February 2007 to March 2009, I was assigned as Regional Program Adviser for Habitat Southeast Asia and appointed concurrently as Interim National Director for Habitat Malaysia.

I assumed several posts in internationally-funded projects in Bohol after this assignment with Habitat for Humanity International:

· March to July 2009 - Project Director, Community-Managed Eco-Cultural Tourism (CoMET) Project funded by AusAID PACAP;

· August 2009 to March, 2010 -Partnership Adviser (Part-time), LGSP-LED (Local Governance Support Programme for Local Economic Development) Bohol funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) ; and

· January 2010 to October 2013 - Project Manager, Realizing DReAMS (Development of Resources for Access to Municipal Services) Project, which was funded by European Union (EU), and implemented in the Philippines, India, Bangladesh,and Bhutan in partnership with the International Council of Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).

In all these projects, we advocated for the use of pro-poor and child-focused community development approaches and tools first field-tested, developed and documented mostly with UN assistance in Bohol. During forty years of development work in a total of 14 countries in the Asia Pacific region, I have been involved in efforts to reach disadvantaged groups and families living in so-called poverty landscapes with much-needed support that they may liberate themselves from the constraints of underdevelopment.

Each project has evolved eventually to yield lessons in linking entrepreneurship to community development and local capacity building initiatives with focus on child rights and welfare and improving project planning and implementatation processes among other disadvantaged groups, such as out-of-school youth.

BLDF involvement during the last five years has included the following:

· Planning and implementation of the Community-Based Shelter Assistance Project which succeeded to demonstrate how to build 150 transition houses to move vulnerable family members (elderly women, disabled or sick family members, children) from insecure tents, built in the aftermath of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake which hit the province on 15 October 2015, using public contributions and the expertise of local carpenters;

· Preparation and implementation of livelihood projects under the framework of Informal Employment and Sustainable Livelihood targeting out-of-school youth, subsistence farmers and fisherfolks, disadvantaged women and the elderly;

· Coalition-building to generate local resources which led eventually to the establishment of the first and only drug rehabilitation center in the province in response to an urgent social need in the wake of the government-led campaign against illegal drug use;

· Successful pilot-testing in a municipality, Baclayon, Bohol, a systematic and human approach to the situation of drug surrenderees through the Database Plus Interventions Project for Surrenderees (DIPS); and, based on this pilot project,

· Preparation of a project proposal voted as number 1 in barangay polls conducted in May 2017 to determine which deserves funding support as part of the I-Budget Natin Project, an initiative under the auspices of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability for East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP), the International Center for Innovation, Transformation, and Excellence (INCITEGov), Making All Voices Count (MAVC) and Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP).

In March, 2017, the BLDF Board of Trustees, most of whom were involved as Project Compassion trainers and fieldworkers in the assessment of community development approaches and programs in the country some 40 years ago, concluded that for projects to be sustainable, they must include a systematic approach to values formation among key participants in the project planning, implementation and monitoring process, including political and informal community leaders, as well as target local communities and households.

Now in our late 70s, we may have run out of our lifetime limit and will have to leave this equally painstaking and noble task to the generations that will succeed us. ###

NMP/30 October 2019/11.31 a.m.

Going back to blogging

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 05:35:00 +0000

Now I go back to blogging again. My last posting was on 21 Oct 2016, three years ago. I looked for this Blogspot when I was told, the BLDF website had expired and had to shell out something like Php 80,000 to get it back. I requested the contractor to just hold on to the content because as usual I am plain broke and would have to raise the money for it.

My son, Odoni, had to teach me how to get into it and start posting. Here we are trying to get the hang of it. I was surprised this facility is still tracking the number of those who visit it. During the past two years or so, I merely shared to this Blogspot my weekly column in a local paper. I did not have the energy to write new stuff for it.

But now, at 77, I find more intense the need to document my thoughts or what I am doing for what purpose, something like documenting "final thoughts on our way out" as we used to say in our campus paper decades ago. Of course, there's a different context for that phrase now. While in the past it used to refer to thoughts we had prior to the closing of a page prior to submission to the printer, this time it refers to our final exit from life on earth.

This is jus the intro to finding this page again. We hope it will be welcomed by both friends and relatives.

1.34 p.m. Time for my delayed afternoon nap here at home. #

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 14:15:00 +0000

SHARING

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 14:15:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

First, I would like to say, I am not new to the practice of sharing lessons from experiences both within or outside projects. I am happy to share that due probably to the fact I am much older than the people I deal with in my everyday work, I am among the few who have done this sharing stuff under varying circumstances or, if you may allow, under different development contexts.

I did it as a high school student as a requirement for being an auxiliary member of the Legion of Mary who must share field work experiences with regular members in Lucena years before it became a bustling city where our provincial high school is located; as a member of Asia’s oldest college fraternity, Upsilon Sigma Phi, with a unique fellowship which requires that “when I meet you, Brother, in the sun I will tell you much”; and still in my college and post-college years, I participated in all those sharing sessions known as CSC or criticism and self-criticism sessions using Mao Tse Tung’s so-called Red Book as a guide.

In our initial professional work after college, we teamed up with the country’s community development pioneers to assess lessons from past projects and formulated the new approach called the “Ilaw ng Buhay: Light of Life” program which features songs and rituals from faith-based practices to convey messages on nutrition, backyard food production and environmental concerns.

In this new approach, we incorporated sharing of experiences among field team members using their daily log books or diaries during monthly meetings of a management unit prosaically called the “Operations Review Committee,” a think tank and monitoring staff under the big boss, the country’s Father of Community Development, Atty. Ramon P. Binamira. Despite my being many years their junior, I was appointed to chair this task group as Special Assistant on Planning and Operations directly under the President of Project Compassion, a pet initiative of the then First Lady, Imelda R. Marcos, to whom Atty. Binamira directly reported.

In my work for thirteen years for UNDP-assisted projects in fourteen countries in the Pacific and the Maldives, I brought the same bias for bringing introspection and reflection among community organizers and fieldworkers which featured sharing of experiences and lessons that focus not only on the technical and objective aspects of development work but also on what was originally referred to in the literature of liberation theology, as well as of people’s revolutions, as the “subjective forces of the revolution.”

In remote atoll countries, almost severed from supply lines of the central government, local communities worked hand in hand with Church groups, island chiefs and island councils in battling child malnutrition. Illiteracy and unemployment, and leveraging local strengths to shake up an indifferent bureucracy to get their fair of much-needed resources from those mandated by local customs and newly-installed legal systems.

You cannot do community mobilization in such a situation using only the project operations manuals provided by donors. To complement the intent of these manuals, we employed the Ilaw ng Buhay approach to reach out to the inner soul of the people, as the missionaries of ancient times, by using the language of their customs and traditions in awakening their collective wisdom and spirit to fight the ills brought about by poverty and inequality.

The lesson is that we must go beyond program frameworks and operations manuals supplied by donors and the central government and interpret development messages and appeals to collective action in ways that also awaken the people’s will to fight for their rights and entitlements under a modern system of governance that seems to speak in a different voice.

In recent years, to my amusement, I witnessed almost the same ritual in sessions of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) arranged by Rene Francisco in Ozamis City for our visiting NGO team composed of myself, Dr. Pomie Buot, our vice president and Romulo Pasco, finance officer. The visit was in early 2014 when Bohol Local Development Foundation was doing field research on how drug rehabilitation certers in Cebu and Mindanao were doing their work and where young people mostly from rich families from Bohol where brought to seek treatment.

Using what they call the Big Book as guide, those who have been victimized by drug addiction and those who have recovered are brought together to reflect on their respective experiences and draw lessons using passages from their “healing Bible.”

Same strategy, same results. You go beyond the ordinary texts of technical jargons and reach out to your inner self to begin the journey towards enlightenment and self-transformation, a pillar of healing and recovery.

I have cited all these in efforts to explain what happened to me when my wife and I were assigned to share our life experiences as is the practice in breakfast sessions of the Brotherhood of Christian Brotherhood and Professionals (BCBP) which we joined in 2015 after eight years of dodging the invitation of Atty. Jun Amora, a family friend, to join. Incidentally, I consider the sharing sessions of BCBP as a powerful component that brings our faith close to us because they deal with how family members actually deal with challenges, brought about mostly by deviating from their true self, and how they are transformed in the process of doing so and emerged closer to God in rediscovering the path of hope and redemption.

I am embarrassed to admit that despite my decades of having such reflection and sharing session which I had under various contexts, e.g. political, religious, traditional, developmental, etc., I burst into tears and cried unabashedly in front of my BCBP brothers and sisters. It came when I was trying to recall how I left my Lola, Inay and Sister in our barrio in Lagalag, Tiaong , Quezon to pursue this project on establishing the UNICEF-assisted Ilaw International Center here in Bohol. I left them practically on their own so I could pursue this objective to establish what was intended to be a repositiory and training center based on documented actual experiences of householdS and local communities which we were assisting to liberate themselves from poverty.

I was overwhelmed by a strong guilt feeling which I thought I had already buried deep in my unsconscious by serving as though in pursuit of a death wish in the country’s eight poorest provinces prior to taking on an assignment in remote villages in the Pacific and the Maldives. I thought I had paid back a lapse on my part in dealing with my own family while I pursued what I thought was my mission in life.

At the same time, I thought of the sacrifices of my friends who gave up their lives that a new nation could be born from the wreckage of a corrupt and cruel order. I resolved to pursue, as my punishment of having survived a cause for which many of my friends died, doing pro-poor programs in places where some of my colleagues in development work usually feared to tread. That was why they referred to my mission as a death wish.

I recalled in my sharing all the events in 2014 which led to our NGO changing track from our building transitional core houses to providing livelihood to families burdened by the problem of having out-of-school youth.

Then we got into this advocacy to assist the youth with drug abuse problem when we started compiling all the news items which showed bullet-riddled bodies on streets of what used to be a peaceful Bohol, where I sought refuge and fixed my messy life, where I did most of my development work and worked for a normal family life and returned to my religion.

I recalled Jojie and I joined BCBP in 2015, with myself feeling like a kindergarten pupil learning the ABCs of my faith.

All these I recalled when Jojie and I were requested to do our sharing with BCBP a few days before the Bohol Center for Drug Education and Counseling (CEDEC) at the Oak Brook Building was launched.

The press release noted that this facility “completes the comprehensive program to address the drug problem in Bohol.”

The news report also states that the Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Council was also created as early as 1997 as an initiative of Kabataang Barangay. In 1999, the Deparrtment of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) issued in a memorandum to provide for its creation.

The report adds: “This provided for the establishment of the center in Bohol which was later on included in the Bohol Administrative Code.” Hence, it can be deduced, if the Center became operational 19 years ago, we could have avoided this drug menace which is causing misery to a lot of Boholano families.

Yes, we would not have this problem of having to contend with more than 31,000 surrenderees in our midst. But I could be wrong. As it is, life in our province goes on as usual as though there is no such problem, as though the system is not broken elsewhere that allows the influx of illegal drugs and make life miserable for a significant number of families that we need to reach out for and show we are all in this together, that we affirm a philosophical truth that the “liberation of one can only be possible with the liberation of all.”

Those who are not affected by the drug abuse problem need to be liberated from their parochial and selfish interests, lack of social concern and sheer indifference to deeply-held values that hold human society together.

Lastly, let me point out a bright note cited in the news release printed by all the weekly newspapers:

“The Technical Working Group of the Provincial Government met a couple of months back with a three-member team from the prestigious New Day Recovery Center on a proposed “A Community-Based Drug Demand Support System for the Province of Bohol and its Municipalities.

“Dr. Miriam Peguit-Cue, of both the NDRC and the Professional Regulatory Commission; Jay Valderrama, NDRC program director; and Katrina Pantaleon, psychologist, were consulted for the training of trainors in implementing the community-based approach and in providing advice for the operations of the center that will be integrated into the comprehensive anti-illegal drug campaign.”

Meanwhile, the LGUs of Baclayon and Loay, the Commission of Family and Life in Dauis and the parish church of Maribojoc have signified their intention to serve as social laboratory areas to demonstrate a systematic approach to profiling surrenderees and classifying them into categories (low risk, moderate risk, and high risk) and planning appropriate interventions for each category.

The Holy Name University has approved the proposal to train 37 psychology interns and 10 guidance counselors on the use of ASSIST (Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement and Screening Test) prior to their deployment to interview 427 surrenderees in Baclayon as basis for the planning of relevant interventions. Other relevant topis will be included such as the Science of Addiction and Counseling.

The training will be held at the HNU from November 3 to 5 to be handled by Dr. Miriam Peguit-Cue and her team from NDRC Davao. Interest participants from LGUs and other entities may contact: Margarita – Mobile 09228167965l; Grace – Mobile 09064855358; Karen – 09217374565.

With all these developments, we hope there will be no reason to shed a tear for this vital activity in this journey towards a more humane treatment for surrenderees to ensure a peaceful and drug-free Bohol. ###

NMP/21 Oct. 2016/8.50 p.m.

A PROJECT WORTHY OF EVERYBODY'S SUPPORT

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 22:08:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune 

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

A project with the forbidding title, Community-Based Drug Demand Reduction Program & Recovery Support System (CB-DDRP&RSS) for the Municipality of Baclayon, may well be the answer to the riddle of how to address the messy situation of having hundreds of surrenderees without a comprehensive treatment and recovery program. 

I have just been from a meeting between Miriam Peguit-Cue, a noted psychologist from the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) and the New Day Resource Center (NDRC) in Davao City, and Karen Flood-Capapas and Karina Uy, both of Holy Name University and in less than an hour I was swept off my feet listening on what they planned to do to support the quest for a more humane and effective way to deal with 429 surrenderees in Baclayon. 

They realized the surrenderees could not fit into the first and only drug rehabilitation center in the province, the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in barangay Laya which can only take in 30 clients at a time. 

Getting the surrenderees out of the province to training centers in Cebu and other places would be too costly an option for both the Government and the affected families. Hence, the three psychologists agreed on the need for a community-based approach to the problem. 

In a presentation made two weeks ago to the Technical Working Group responsible for the planning and implementation of Bohol’s drug rehabilitation program, Miriam Cue and Jay Valderrama, NDRC program director, cited the following as features of the often-cited community-based approach as opposed to the conventional center-based modality: 

“any drug demand reduction effort or recovery support initiative for those with SUD [Substance Use Disorder], that exists within a community and generally operated by people from that very community;

“a cooperative endeavor that utilizes available community resources on a voluntary, self-sufficient and self-sustaining basis”

What they talked about within the hour were based on these precepts, aware that social preparation and community involvement could result in the use of local human and other resources for an affordable and sustainable treatment process for drug abuse victims. 

On the matter of applying ASSIST (Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test) to determine the addiction level of surrenderees, the HNU is willing that its 37 senior psychology students be intensively trained on the use of this tool designed, field-tested and validated in several countries by WHO and has been used worldwide since 2010. 

NDRC Davao, which has been proposed as training institution for the Drug Advisory Program (DAP) of the  Colombo Plan Secretariat based in Sri Lanka, will provide three trainors for this vital and pace-setting activity that will give a vigorous head start to the evolving community-based approach to drug rehabilitation efforts in the province. 

With Baclayon aspiring to be the initial pilot area for this innovative approach, the training and eventual deployment of 37 trained psychology interns from HNU will be enough to cover the municipality’s 17 barangays with a two-member research team. As the NDRC presentation says:

“It is important that those responsible for intake, screening and assessment should be trained properly to ensure a systematic process of gathering personal and other pertinent information of the person as basis for determining the severity of the problem, and for identifying the most appropriate means of assistance.”

The NDRC consultants will join hands with the Psychology faculty of HNU to ensure that data collection per surrenderee will be professionally and properly done. This will be in consonance with  Principle 2 as articulated by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) in the document, Community-Based Treatment and Care for Drug Use and Dependence: 

Principle 2: Screening, Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment-Planning

Comprehensive assessments, diagnosis and treatment planning are the basis for individualized treatments that address the specific needs of each patient and that will also help to engage him/her into treatment.

It is then clear that the resulting database will be used as basis for planning appropriate interventions for each category of clients and thus ensure a more effective counselling and treatment process. 

Through this database, high-risk clients can be identified and assigned to drug rehab centers outside the province while planned facilities by the Government and private sector are still being built. It is expected that clients in this category will not exceed 10% or even lower based on observed behavior of the surrenderees. 

It has been observed that despite lack of systematic treatment and counselling, there has been no spate of violence and majority seem to refrain from resorting to the old habit by sheer force of will  or they are simply restrained by fear of being neutralized (translation: arrested and or killed) by either the police or so-called vigilantes which have sprung up everywhere for the past two months. Others say this is just the calm before the storm. 

It has been proposed that the individualized database of the surrenderees can be aggregated and assessed for the purpose of programming the inputs relevant to the current needs and addiction status of the surrenderees. 

The following key activities have been recommended once the database has been set up: 

-Presentation/discussion of the ASSIST outputs to the Sandigang Bayan, 

Mayor and the technical  agencies indicating their implications

in terms of relevant interventions, policy support and assistance 

to surrenderees in terms of their categorization  (1 day)

-Presentation/discussion of findings and possible interventions to Barangay 

Captains (1 day). BCs to orient their respective Councils. 

-Initial organization and orientation of heads of families with 

surrenderees to be done by Barangays  under the 

Councils with assistance from the Municipal Technical Working Group (TWG) and designated Community Facilitators. 

These key activities will ensure broad-based participation of local communities and families , as well as the local governance structures. It is expected that through this participatory process, the healing and treatment process will be de-stigmatized and that a humane perspective on the drug addiction problem in the community will prevail. 

Now to answer a question probably in everybody’s mind at this point – how much will be the cost of this community-based project? 

Here is the estimated budget estimate as part of the proposal to be submitted to the Baclayon LGU:

 SUMMARY OF FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS

Support to establishing a Project Coordination Office 

at MTO …………                                   Php 312,000  (35%)

Orientation of SB, Technical Agencies, 

NGOs and CSOs ……………………                60,800 (7%)

Training on the use of ASSIST 

for Screening/Assessment …………………       91,500 (11%)

Encoding the data and storing 

them in a central file ………………   ……          80,000 (9%)

Planning workshop to link ASSIST 

data with interventions ………………                  47,000 (5%)

Hiring of external consultants to provide 

technical assistance ……….                              280,000 (33%)

                ==========

 Total   ……………………………………Php 871,300

 Contingency (15% of Total) ………………………………………………………. 130.695

 GRAND TOTAL  …………………….PHP 1,001,995

We think that with resolute commitment and resourcefulness, the LGU will be able to producethis amount with the help of its partners: the Provincial Government, private sector, faith-based organizations, NGOs and civil society organizations. 

Or they can do vigorous fund campaigns using all sorts of drvies and tapping the resources of the kababayans abroad. If they can do this to organize festivities, family and class reunions, beauty constests and all sorts of parties , they can surely do this “to save souls” and ensure the survival of our province and its people. 

The three ladies I spent the afternoon with know that this crisis is also an opportunity to rediscover our unity around a project worthy of everybody’s support for Bohol and the country as a whole. Indeed may we not all fiddle while Rome burns. For comments, email: npesteslos@gmail.com #drugfreeboholcampaign

NMP/24 Sep 2016/5.20 a.m. 

A COALITION OF THE WILLING FOR A DRUG-FREE BOHOL

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 08:59:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Events during the past two weeks have convinced me we must now vigorously move forward to form a coalition of the willing for a drug-free Bohol and that the first catalyst activity to give it momentum is to produce a profile of each of the 31,000 drug users who have signified their intention to lead a new life without drugs.

In all our meetings which started Sunday evening, 21 August, with consultants from the New Day Recovery Center (NDRC) from Davao City to today, Thursday, when we have continued to consult with friends from the drug addiction profession, and listened intently to discussions among social and health workers, I have become convinced that the task of profiling the surrenderees should be done first to ensure a systematic response to the needs of our target beneficiaries, the surrenderees.

If accomplished, this individual database will make it possible to provide interventions relevant to each category of drug-affected surrenderees to be classified as low risk, moderate risk and high risk. I am convinced that this task can be undertaken systematically starting at the municipal or city LGU level.

The provincial government, with its task force, can form a mobile team trained on the use of tools for determining the extent of addiction of each surrenderee. The resulting database can be used to determine which surrenderees will be put on outpatient basis; those provided with comprehensive counselling and most likely livelihood , and others which can in-patient treatment services. This is part of the strategy proposed by the NDRC consultants as part of their

With this target-specific approach, the government need not worry about putting everybody in a drug rehabilitation center which will be costly and will take years to build taking into account the usual pace of infrastructure planning and implementation in our country.

The key questions in carrying out this important task are as follows: a) what are the tools to be used in profiling the surrenderees; b) who can be trained to administer them; c) how long will the training be conducted; d) how much will be the cost for the training of those who will administer the tools.

The tools used are as follows:

-ASSIST or Alcohol and Substance Screening Test

-ASI (Addiction Severity Index)

-Severity Index Form

-Psychology Tests

In a preliminary study conducted by a technical working group in Baclayon, the duration per training will be three days; two persons will be needed to be trained from each barangay; and that the expenses will be for training materials; meals and snacks; and transportation.

If participants will be trained on all four tools, the cost per participant will be Php 488 per day or a total Php 3,723 per participant per day.

It was the consensus of the group that ways must be found to reduce the costs of training the staff who will administer the tools, usually the health and social workers.

At this point, It is crucial to understand the difference between screening and assessment. I looked it up and I found this:

Screening is a process for evaluating the possible presence of a particular problem. The outcome is normally a simple yes or no.
Assessment is a process for defining the nature of that problem, determining a diagnosis, and developing specific treatment recommendations for addressing the problem or diagnosis.

Hence, in this light, since the surrenderees are identified as drug users, it may be asked whether we need still to use the ASSIST as a tool. I heard it in one of the meetings that the ASI may be the only appropriate tool to use.

The third tool may also be used but the psychological tests may be used later once the surrenderees have been categorized. If we use only two tools, ASI and the Severity Index Form, we will be able to reduce the costs of profiling the surrenderees.

During the meeting of the provincial Technical Working Group, I got the impression that the social workers and the health workers have been trained on the use of the screening tools. Hence, it is just a matter of mobilizing and training them as trainors this time by the consultants to be able to cascade the training at the municipal level.

As in practically all cases, how to fund activities is the key concern whether at provincial and municipal level. Hence, there must be a way to encourage LGUs to work closely with drug addiction professionals and find more cost-effective ways to do the profiling of surrenderees.

Yesterday, I was in Sierra Bullones in the company of former UN colleagues, Cecilio Adorna and Richard Prado, as observer in the conduct of Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) as part of formulating the 2017-2022 Philippine National Nutrition Plan. It occurred me while listening to their quite intense discussions that the keen interest and leadership of the Local Chief Executives is key to mobilizing staff and resources to ensure that any national plan and projects formulated will get the support of the various sectors.

We have learned this lesson through forty years of working in projects implemented in partnership with local governments in various countries. Always there is the challenge to involve local political leaders so that they will help to mobilize resources for programs considered as top priority.

In Sierra Bullones, the Municipal Health Offricer and the Municipal Nutrition Officer have provided the leadership, with the support of the Municipal Mayor, to raise funds for its Municipal Nutrition Program. We hope the same tenacity of purpose will be shown in supporting the profiling of surrenderees so that the latter can eventually be provided with relevant interventions appropriate to their addiction severity status.

I learned from the MHO, Dr. Janice Belleza, that on the matter of profiling surrenderees, all ten nurses under her office have all been trained in the use of ASSIST. The next step is to decide whether they still have to be trained with the other three tools to be able to start this all-important work.

We need the drug addiction professionals to start a discussion on this vital issue. This is the time to review or evaluate the screening and assessment tools and decide which ones to use given the crucial task ahead of providing relevant services to the surrenderees.

Otherwise we may be going around in circles in planning interventions most appropriate at this time in managing the situation of having more than 31,000 surrenderees in our province. At this critical stage, we need a coalition of the willing for a drug-free Bohol but we cannot do organizing and social mobilization work if we do not know exactly the extent of the problems affecting the target beneficiaries.

For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com ###

NMP/02 September 2016/4.11 p.m.

MORE THAN A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 19 Aug 2016 21:12:00 +0000

F The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

While I visited my home province, Quezon, several times in the past to attend class reunions, helped implement projects and attend burials of relatives and close friends, today it is different from all previous visits. Today, 19 August, I came to be one of five awardees to receive the Quezon Medalya ng Karangalan Award on Public Service – Community Development, one of five awards given this year, the others being for spiritual leadership, culture and the arts, culinary arts and farming.

On the way from the airport in Tagbilaran City, Bohol, my adopted province for thirty-four years, to Lucena City, the provincial capital where the awards ceremonies would be held, I was in a van accompanied by my wife, Jojie; a close friend from UP Los Banos, Bing Manalo-Santos, from the sorority, Sigma Delta Phi, aligned with our fraternity, Upsilon Sigma Phi; my daughter from a previous relationship during the turbulent martial law years, Cecille, her husband, Edwin, and Aicelle, one of their three daughters.

The composition of those who rode in the van with me represented some marked episodes in my life, more of a coincidence actually rather than by deliberate purpose or design. The others who were supposed to ride with us could not make it for various reasons, mostly for being unable to change previous engagements.

I asked permission from my co-passengers if I could carry out an itinerary previously submitted to my Quezon High Class 1958 classmates, Nini Lopez-De Asis and Butch Gonzales, volunteer facilitators of my visit during this important occasion.

And so it came to pass that I had a sentimental journey yesterday visiting old friends before we settled for the night in this guest house called WalZen, acronym for the names of the owners, Walter and Zenaida Lopez De Asis.

First we dropped by the home of Manuel and Nora Ramirez whom I knew from my college years at UPLB in the Sixties. Manoling, a 73-year old brod from the Upsilon, had been bedridden for eleven years after a stroke and brain surgery. I remember him as a debonair senior fraternity brother, one of those “crush ng bayan” guys, along with Brods Willie Herrera, Boy Balasoto, Jun Mejia and Joven de Leon with his lean, athletic body and a perpetual seductive smile on his face.

It was shocking to see him here on his sick bed, looking helpless and probably waiting only for the final signature, as we used to joke in the old days.

I was proven wrong with this initial impression. While lying in bed, he could do Facebook posting by the sheer ingenuity of being able to position his laptop above his bed and tapping the keyboard with the fingers of his left hand. He could listen to radio and view TV by remote control and positioning the sets conveniently near his bed.

He carries on conversation with his wife, Nora, and guests by writing on his note pad. His ears, by all indications, are still in good order for perfect listening. During the visit, he asked me about a) where did I go after college; b) what happened to the brods who joined the underground movement in those days; c) how many are my children; d) where do I live now; e) where will I go after visiting him.

We were informed by Bing, his frequent visitor who would always bring his favorite ayungin and other f fish menus, about his long-kept secret: Manny could paint with his toes! His batch mate in the fraternity, Nestor Navasero, taught him how to do it during one of his visits from Canada where he has lived for years. Someday we would bring his collection of art works and do an exhibit for all the world to see and be convinced you need not feel helpless while paralyzed in bed.

We laughed with him recalling our crazy adventures as fraternity brods on this campus in the Sixties, including raids on poultry farms just for the sheer challenge of eluding security guards and passers-by and going back to the frat house to other brods waiting for pulutan or sumsuman. As I looked at Manoling on his sick bed, I was thinking that being paralyzed could not be a hindrance to living a happy life. Manoling, you are a hero in that vital sense and we are all proud of you!

Next stop was in the residence of Pete and Mimi Cortes-Ocampo whom I knew also way back in the Sixties at UP Los Banos. I sat next to Pete in my animal husbandry class and knew him as the quiet, scholarly type. Mimi was a Sigma Deltan and distinguished herself as a popular campus figure identified with social causes. We lost track of each other for years but after three decades or so, I finally met her at the UPLB alumni officer where she worked.

I met them several weeks ago during their field evaluation mission in Bohol for CARD projects. My wife and I brought them home for dinner and Pete quickly noted I shared something in common with Mimi: our house was filled with all sorts of files from projects, all waiting to be properly assigned to shelves and boxes all over the house. We validated Pete’s observation in this trip when we saw Mimi’s files everywhere in all sorts of storage spaces and shelves and we all shared a good laugh about it all.

Mimi accompanied us to the office of MADECOR, probably the country’s oldest development consultancy firm, having been founded in early 70s by a team of former scholars and close friends. There I met Pids Del Rosario, MADECOR president who was at one time president of the UP Los Banos Alumni Association. Last year, Pids nominated me to receive the UPLB Outstanding Alumni Award for Community Service and Local Governance. A former awardee and a fraternity brother, Leon Arceo, endorsed the nomination and I got the award.

This visit was in connection with that award, too. When we went home to Bohol after the awarding ceremony 09 October last year, my wife promptly displayed the Mariang Makiling trophy on top of the piano where the other trophies and plaques and laminated certificates were usually displayed. That night after we arrived, a gust of monsoon wind swept away all the things on top of the piano, including my trophy, which promptly broke in several pieces.

The quest for a replacement brought me face to face with my friend Pids, whose help Mimi had sought for the replacement of that trophy. Pids waived the payment for the replacement and Mimi had to bring me here to say thank you to my friend.

From the MADECOR office, this acronym the meaning of which I could not articulate despite knowing the consultancy firm and what it does for underserved clients of development, we went to visit the couple Rem and Kits Bernal-Torres, close friends from our student days through all the decades of alternate joys and despair. I usually drop by their house on the way to destinations this side of Luzon mostly to share updates on family goings-on which could not be covered by FB posting and emails.

The Torreses were usually the willing victims of my unending gripes about life’s circumstances in those days when I was forever growing up. The day with them would not be complete without gentle admonitions to be good. They played the shepherds to my stubborn self all throughout our student days and those years I had to endure periods of doubt and intense quest for what could be a lifelong mission in life which prosaically turned out to be just to be good at making projects work among the poor.

In this visit on the way to receiving an award from my home province, I was trying to say my gratitude and that of my family to the two of them who had done the most to keep me out of harm’s way in my pursuit of the true path towards liberation from false Messiahs on my cross.

In Lagalag, in this village where I was born, I requested the van driver Rolly to stop where our house used to stand. I remember Rem convinced me to just sell the piece of land left by my Mother and Grandmother in the 80s when they passed away because I could not manage to visit it regularly.

I looked at the place which had become a gasoline station and I could not bear to walk towards the place where I had spent my childhood for fear I would hear the voices of my mother, grandmother and sister admonishing me for abandoning this place. I just closed my eyes to momentarily pray and then I crossed over to the other side of the road where our neighbor, Ka Nida, stood by the entrance to their house as though expecting our visit after so many decades of my absence from this neighborhood where I grew up.

In the next barangay, Taguan, already a part of Candelaria, the municipality next to Tiaong on the way to the capital, Lucena, I requested the driver to stop in front of the elementary school and called my cousin, Rhodora Pestelos-Renacido. She is a retired nurse who settled in this village where most of the Pesteloses live rather than stay in Holland where she and husband Efren had worked for decades.

Efren came to the highway where our van was parked and led us to their farm house, which turned out to be an elegant two-story building in the middle of what looked like a vast plantation. Dora showed Jojie her collection of dolls and handicraft pieces she has been teaching mothers in the area to make during their spare time so they augment family income. Efren, on the other hand, related to Bing and the others in our group their efforts to develop the place by planting fruit trees and engaging in duck raising.

He recalled that my close friend, Cecilio Adorna, came to visit the place with his son Eman to find out how they were raising ducks for to produce the delicacy known world-wide as balut.

It was around 8 in the evening when we reached Lucena. In front of Max’s restaurant by the highway to Pagbilao, I promptly called my former high school classmate, Nini. She owns the place called WalZen where we would stay for the night.

4.18 a.m., the morning after the awards program. I write this part of the column in a hotel in the middle of the city where another classmate, Butch Gonzales, had booked Jojie and I to spend the night prior to our departure tomorrow.

We were informed our classmates from high school would come at lunch today for a sort of reunion. I am thankful for Nini and Butch for making our stay here more than a sentimental journey to our home province.

It was actually a journey to reaffirm the common ties we share with both relatives and friends to make life a little more meaningful by dedicating it to a worthy cause. The journey continues. ###

NMP/20 August 2016/4.38 a.m. /Lucena City

PROPOSED SMAL-SCALE BUT HIGH-IMPACT PROJECTS FOR DRUG REHABILITATION

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 22:34:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

For the past two weeks, I was able to finalize and submit three project proposals to potential donors after a period spent in research and consultations on how best to respond at municipal and barangay or household levels to a desperate situation considered by many as a tragedy waiting to happen.

These proposals are meant to address a messy situation where hundreds of identified and self-confessed drug addicts and pushers have been left unattended while supposedly in the care of households and local communities.

Let me share these proposals with you in this week’s column. I still nourish this hope that new leaders will arise from local communities to push for these projects while waiting for the big national program to come with ample resources, possibly with the PHP1 billion pesos donated by San Miguel Corp. to the government for the building of drug rehab centers.

These proposed projects, which can be considered small-scale but high-impact projects, are as follows:

1) A facility with the generic name, Bohol Drug Dependency Rehabilitation Center. it was conceived and designed as thesis requirement for the BS Architecture degree course last schoolyear at the Bohol Island State University (BISU). The team spent time at the Balay Kahayag site in Laya, Bohol to study features of the project site and see how it could be linked to the current facility which the study was supposed to complement and enhance.

The team was headed by Luigi Rulida with the following as members: Isidro Macabenta, Jayson Rey Sayson, and Ma. Josephine Sarigumba. Their adviser was Arch. Nino Guidaben, former Ayala Foundation scholar, an internationally trained heritage and environment conservation architect. As early as 2014, Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF) funded his study trip to Davao City so assess the positive and negative aspects in the design of drug rehab centers.

Like his students, he also visited the Balay Kahayag site in Laya to familiarize himself with the place as location of a drug rehab facility.

The proposed facility would increase the intake capacity of the current FITWBK to another 30 clients. It was designed to integrate nature in the healing and recovery process of the clients. The concept of all buildings is from bahay kubo with its roofing inspired by leaf concept

The project cost is Php 62 million. I asked the permission of the team leader to send the design and costing to a close friend in Australia who volunteered to present it to potential donors, such as the Rotary of Australia. Anybody interested in helping raise funds so we could build the center in Bohol could just email us at npestelos@gmail.com.

2) Outreach and Drop-In Centers (ODICs) . I have written about this vital facility a number of times in my column. Under the present situation, it will serve as a vital facility to link surrenderees and their families to an outreach center where can access diagnostic, counselling and referral services.

We have estimated the budget to establish an ODIC including the maintenance costs for a year as follows:

1.1 Building cost for 17 sq.m. structure

at Php 18,000 per sq m. PHP 306,000*

1.2 Office equipment (1 Laptop; LCD; 2

tables; 6 chairs; 1 electric fan) 62,500

1.3 Staff (1 Psychologist; 1 Social

Worker) 387,525

1.4 Utilities (Light and water; office

supplies; communication and

transport) 74,400

TOTAL PHP 830,425

If there is an existing office space or underutilized building which can be used as outreach center, the e the annual cost to maintain an ODIC will be: Php 524, 425.

Additional costs will be consultancy fees for trainers who will train the ODIC staff and to include training supplies, food, etc. : Php 100,000. Hence, the total costs to establish and maintain one ODIC for one year will be: Php 624,425. Several municipalities can share a common ODIC to reduce the operations costs and achieve efficiency in operations.

3) Good Samaritan Project.

The first project I came up with more than a month ago. The title is tentative. In our consultation meeting, Fr. Rara said we must change the name because people from other religions may not like the term. No problem with the suggestion. The title is tentative; it can still be revised.

The project concept was based on the familiar Biblical passage on the Good Samaritan which our action group at the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) reflected on during one of our meetings. I spun it off as a project concept based on the idea that we could be our brother’s keeper during this time that needy persons are, as it were, left dying and helpless by the road.

I believe that this can be done while waiting for the Government to establish a drug rehab center in addition to the one we have now which you have visited.

Basically it is a community participation approach to address the presence of an overwhelming number of drug users without a counselling or treatment program. We can pilot this in the three municipalities which are in the catchment area of the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center.

We can work with either the Church, an NGO or LGU to coordinate the project. We can start with a budget of Php 200,000 to Php 500,000 per municipality, depending on its population size and topography, which will pay for administrative, training and social preparation costs. The important thing is to reach out to the drug users as early as possible, categorize them as to the severity of addiction, refer serious cases to the drug rehab center and provide counseling and other interventions, e.g. livelihood to drug users in other categories.

Here are the specifics of the project so that we need not think of rehabilitation in terms of a rehabilitation center:

For background and rationale, I note:

Even prior to the ascension to power of the new national Administration, which has pledged to eradicate in six months the pernicious drug abuse problem and drug-related crimes in the country, there has been a spate of killings of drug pushers and drug lords, and probably a number of ordinary drug users.

The situation has created a climate of fear which has led to the surrender of an overwhelming number of drug pushers and users all over the country. In Bohol, for instance, the number of those who surrendered have increased from an initial 3,000 to than 30,000 in less than a month. Due to lack of drug rehabilitation centers, coupled with the high cost of rehabilitation, it is expected that most of those who surrendered will end up in the custody of their respective families without access to systematic counselling and treatment,

It is common knowledge, however, that drug addiction results in brain damage and psychological aberrations and the families are not equipped to handle such day-to-day problems that may arise on account of these factors.

The situation arising from the mass surrender of drug users requires a systematic pre-treatment, treatment and post-treatment process undertaken under the guidance of a rehabilitation center or drug addiction professionals working in close coordination with the affected families and local communities.

This project represents an effort to address the problems that may arise on account of the mass surrender of drug users and the need to assist the family cope with possible problems that may occur on account of lack of access to adequate rehabilitation services.

For Overall Goal, I put the following:

To ensure that each surrenderee is provided a comprehensive and appropriate package of services from pre-treatment to full recovery.

I listed the following as specific objectives

a. To establish baseline data on the condition of each surrenderee which will serve as basis for treatment and post-treatment interventions;

b. To ensure systematic provision of counselling and other services with the full cooperation and assistance of the family and the local community, as well as the local government;

c. To monitor regularly the progress of each client and adjust inputs accordingly;

d. To document outstanding cases of full recovery and successful integration with both the family and the community.

To achieve these objectives, I put the following as comprising the implementation strategy of the project:

a) Partnership with all key sectors with specific inputs to deliver;

b) Mobilization of volunteers who will be organized into teams assigned to specific cluster of target clients in specific location and linked to specific focal person in the project management committee;

c) Organization of families of clients to ensure spiritual and other support to target clients.

d) Designation of a pilot area where implementation approaches can be tested based on current organizational capability, existence of willing partners, and affordability.

For key activities, I listed the following:

-Link up with drug rehab centers in nearby regions and consult them if they can help conduct a systematic diagnosis of those arrested and those who surrendered to determine a) who can be treated at home; b) those who must be treated in a drug rehab facility; and (c) those whose mental conditions has worsened due to long period of drug use and must be committed to a mental hospital instead.

-Recruit and train volunteers who can serve as counsellors for both drug abuse victims and their respective families;

-Train nursing, psychology and/or social work or social science students and their teachers on the use of diagnostic tools so that the diagnosis could be done on a massive scale simultaneously to cover most of the 30,000 surrenderees;

-Formulate and implement a short-term orientation or basic skills training course for all the volunteers who are willing to do this work;

-Liaise with partner drug rehab centers and institutions and seek their advice on how to fast-tract treatment at substantially lower costs;

-Organize an interim core team who will assist in mobilizing support from all sectors (Government, Church and faith-based organizations; private sector; civil society organizations, academic institutions, etc.

-Get an updated list of surrenderees and all relevant data about them for planning purposes.

For Organization and Management, I listed the following:

--Decide on the initial coverage area of the project which will serve as learning site for approaches, methodologies and detailed organization work of building local area teams linked to central management

-Get a list of identified surrendeeres per area (barangay; purok)

-Organize them into 5-member Units; let them elect a leader among themselves; designate a place where they can meet regularly. A Project Officer (PO), who will come from the coordinating organization, will handle initially one Unit assisted by a volunteer to come from partner institution such as Holy Name University (HNU) or other academic institutions, Church group, etc.

The Assistant Project Officer (APO) , who can either be a Volunteer or a member of the coordinating agency, will be trained to assume the tasks of the PO someday so there is a system for recruiting more volunteers to do this vital task.

-All POs will be trained on how to perform their various tasks; they can be organized as a group, too.

-Likewise all APOs will be organized as a group, too, so systematic training inputs can be provided and the sharing of experiences facilitated. All Unit Leaders may also be organized as a group for the purpose of imparting training skills.

-A Project Management Committee (PMC) will be organized at a higher level to supervise two teams – a Project Support Team to take care of logistics and funding and admin support; and a Training and Advocacy Team to handle training and information support to project operations.

I also proposed that Families of GSN Members will be organized into a GSN Family Association and can elect their own officers and a PO assigned to it, too. It can be linked to the PMO.For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com ### NMP/13 Aug 2016/5.13 a.m.

PRACTICA INITIATIVES

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 14:35:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Starting this week, we have heard practical initiatives on how to cope with more than 100, 000 illegal drug users and pushers who have surrendered to police authorities for fear to end up as corpses in the current deadly war launched by the Duterte administration.

Aside from news about gruesome killings which readers have been used to during the past few weeks, the scene has brightened up with actual initiatives either proposed or put on the ground to respond to the need for surrenderees to pass through a systematic process of diagnosis, counselling and for others, a more intensive treatment and recovery process.

For Bohol, a meeting is being held at this time while we are writing this column today, 04 August, by the Provincial Anti-Drug Council (PADAC) presided by Gov. Edgar Chatto. The meeting seeks to finalize details on how to operationalize in two weeks’ time a Counseling and Rehabilitation Center.

The facility will be located at the Oak Brook Building near the St. Joseph Cathedral and will be staffed by a doctor, social worker, nurse and clerk, according to Dave Charles Responte, who posted the early news about the meeting on Facebook along with picures taken by Ric Obedencio.

A long way to go to cope with the 30,000 identified drug addicts and pushers who have surrendered the past few weeks, but a significant initial step to provide a contact point where drug abuse victims can be categorized and provided initial counselling and advice for referral and treatment.

As described by the FB posting, the facility looks like an Outreach and Drop-In Center (ODIC), which is a sort of half-way house to a regular drug rehab center. We hope it will happen soon and made operational so municipal LGUs and private sector entities can learn how to establish and operate one. In previous columns, based on the experience of health ministries and local governments in other countries, we have noted such facility is quite important to serve as information, diagnostic and referral centers for drug addiction cases.

In our own estimate, such facility, if it will use an existing building or office, will cost only around Php 350,000 to maintain in a year for a staff of three and other office requirements. Most LGUs can afford such cost. In fact, the facility can require payment for its services to make it sustainable.

With such huge number of drug users, however, which may reach more than 30,000, building such facilities as a counselling and drop-in centers will not be sufficient to cope with the need to provide comprehensive treatment and post-treatment services. In fact, we need more than one drug rehabilitation and mental hospital as planned to be located in the Municipality of Carlos P. Garcia under the draft Development Framework of the Province of Bohol.

It looks like we need to launch a vigorous advocacy and marketing campaign so that the private sector, including the existing drug rehab centers in other regions, will find it attractive to establish branches here in the province where they can be assured of substantial support from the Government and other stakeholders, such as the business community, who will be among those affected adversely if hundreds of illegal drug users remain untreated.

Meanwhile, let us study some practical initiatives either proposed or launched in some areas of the country to cope with the overwhelming number of surrenderees expected to reach more than 150,000 by this month.

Fr. Fernando Po, drug awareness guru and development advocate, called our attention early this week about an initiative championed by ex-drug addict–turned-Congressman, Arnolfo Teves, Jr. of Negros Oriental.

Congressman Teves proposes that:

-Public high school classrooms be used as rehabilitation centers from 5 pm to 8 p.m. because classrooms are no longer in use at this time. He says this is the time when an addict’s day normally starts, when the addict has the most cravings for drugs.

-Around 50 drug dependents to stay in a classroom and their rehabilitation program to be conducted by two primary counselors, two secondary counselors, and two volunteers.

-Participants to attend 8 am-to-9 am meetings at barangay covered courts.

-An optional physical therapy session, which may include a game of basketball or a session of zumba, to follow from 9 am to 10 am.

-The daily rehabilitation program to be implemented in the span of 8 to 12 weeks.

If approved by the Duterte administration, he plans to coordinate with different local government units. He says his proposed rehabilitation program would only cost the government Php 2,500 per drug dependent.

In Iloilo City, Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog said the city government would allocate Php 5 million initially from its peace and order fund to establish drop-in centers to address the needs of surrenderees with mild and moderate addiction. He said those with severe cases will be referred to the Department of Health.

Mayor Mabilog noted that most families cannot afford the cost of treatment, which may last from three to six months. In the Western Visayas region, treatment cost, excluding medicines, ranges from Php 10,000 monthly in government centers and Php 25,000 to Php 60,000 monthly in private facilities.

The drop-in center, to be established in each of the city’s six districts, will employ a psychologist, a nurse, three peer facilitators and a record custodian or utility person. Clients will be provided periodic drug testing, spiritual and psycho-social counseling, vitamins and post-care follow-up for a period of one year.

For the national government, Pres. Duterte announced in last night’s meeting with volunteers in the recent elections that he would convert military camps into drug rehab facilities complete with doctors, nurses, and social workers. He did not indicate a time frame for this remarkable plan.

In a press conference in Jaro, Iloilo City last 05 July, Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial announced that all regional offices have been ordered “to really prioritize community-based rehabilitation centers.” She said that not all drug dependents have to be residential or have to be committed to a facility.

According to her, the DOH treatment and rehabilitation centers have been trained to establish community-based centers and what is now needed is getting the cooperation of local government units.

She compares the community-based drug rehabilitation approach to a parole program wherein a drug addict who surrenders reports to his or her barangay officials everyday.

"We do random drug test, any time that they report, they can be tested. If they test positive, they have to undergo screening by our doctors, and if need be, they have to be committed to facilities. Not all who surrender will be automatically committed to a facility," she explained.

The DOH head said that the program also includes after-care, with government continuing to support a "graduate" of the treatment and rehabilitation center even after he or she returns to the community. She disclosed that the community-based drug rehabilitation approach was pilot-tested in Davao City years ago.

It is expected that the community-based drug rehabilitation approach will be replicated throughout the country through the DOH regional offices in collaboration with local government units.

The health secretary said scaling up the program would entail the training of LGU and barangay officials who will facilitate community-based rehabilitation services. DOH will tap LGUs and non-governmental organizations to help in assisting patients who may not be accommodated by existing treatment and rehabilitation centers. Private facilities can expand to admit some of the patients, but government will pay for residential treatment.

For the long term, DOH will convert some facilities into treatment and rehabilitation centers soon, in collaboration with LGUs. The DOH will shoulder the centers' operating expenses, and LGUs will provide the personnel.

The report says the health department's Health Facilities Enhancement Program has a P26.87 billion allocation in the 2016 budget. Of this amount, P18.96 billion is for the construction, expansion, rehabilitation, and repair of health facilities, including dangerous drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation centers.

Meanwhile, the killing continues. More and more drug users and pushers, out of fear, are swelling the ranks of surrenderees from day to day. It’s about time the practical initiatives which have been proposed are planned, funded and implemented.

Otherwise the war against illegal drugs will just be a grand horror show for our country and the whole world. For comments, email npestelos@gmail.com.

NMP/04 Aug. 2016/9.41 p.m.

# # #

FROM SURRENDER TO RECOVERY

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 14:15:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Judging from Facebook posting and emails from friends and colleagues, keen public attention has shifted from the rampant killings going on in Bohol and the country as a whole to concern about what to do with the hundreds of drug users who have surrendered to the police and turned over to their respective families.

In Bohol, some 23,000 surrenderees were reported as of this week, but no plan has been announced so far on how to handle this number of drug users so that they can be given appropriate treatment to prevent them from reverting to their old ways. The same waiting-game situation seems to exist in other provinces. Aside from the announcement by Pres. Duterte that military camps will be used as drug rehabilitation centers, no detailed plan has been presented yet at national and sub-national levels.

It is obvious that making drug users sign a pledge not to sell or use drugs will be ineffective if steps are not taken to provide them adequate psychological inputs or the necessary treatment protocol to ensure that brain damage which results from repeated drug use will not lead to their committing crimes or anti-social acts.

In previous columns, I have reported on suggestions given by drug addiction professionals who attended a series of consultations we have arranged on how to deal with this increasing number of drug users turning themselves in to police authorities. Just based on common sense, drug abuse therapy being not our field of specialization, we have suggested the need for assessment of each drug user’s status to determine appropriate intervention required.

Now we continue to report on feedbacks or suggestions received from our friends through FB and email as response to our appeal for more information on how to deal with surrenderees, a matter of concern to LGUs, civil society organizations and many individual families in the province.

We have posted on FB and make available through individual emails to friends in Government and NGOs, including faith-based organizations and academic institutions, a summary of suggestions given by friends and development colleagues.

I have reprinted in full the strategy proposed by Miriam Peguit-Cue, Chairperson, Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology, Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), and made it available to others through social media and emails. In last week’s column, however, I dealt only with the section on recovery supports, where she talked about what could be done at community and family levels.

I assumed that her recommendations on what to do at national and provincial levels were read by those concerned for possible inclusion in the strategy being formulated on how to deal with the 23,000 drug users and pushers virtually given provisional amnesty by the police and the national government.

In an earlier email dated 14 July 2016, Miriam Cue, who is also consulting psychologist at the New Day Recovery Center (NDRC) in Davao City, gave a list of what could be done at municipal level while waiting for a national program to be put in place to complement the current drive to plush out drug users and pushers and get them to pledge to change their ways.

1. Information drive. Conduct advocacy campaign to build awareness and concern. Destigmatize addiction and mental health issues. Help local residents understand that these people [drug users] need help, not condemnation to enlist their support. Work out a platform to build a real therapeutic community where community members help each other and all those who surrendered towards wholeness and wellness.

2. Mapping. Identify the community's treatment capacity. Identify and determine the needed resources and what can be provided by the LGU and the community itself in terms of treatment services and psycho-social support. She says they have few "graduates" of NDRC who are now in recovery, and have reintegrated themselves into the community. They can be trained them to become support buddies and recovery coaches.

3. Outreach Services. Make contact. Build linkages. Reach out to the clients and identify essential support services in the locality. Establish directory of resources and services. Connect client, support groups and service provider(s). Identify local resources we can tap and facilities we can use for outpatient treatment.

4. Client Registration and triaging, including the screening and assessment of those who surrendered. We already translated ASSIST (a screening tool for alcohol, smoking and substance use) into the vernacular (local dialect) to facilitate more efficient and effective use. We need to triage the client population to determine the type of treatment they need.

For those considered to be in the low to moderate risk and addiction severity, brief intervention will be provided. Those found to be of high risk and addiction severity will be subjected to more thorough assessment using the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) which we are also translating for trained workers to use. She says she will conduct the training myself.

5. Expand Brief Intervention in the Primary Care Setting. Many of those who surrendered may not require intensive treatment or psychosocial report in a residential or outpatient facility. Many will only require brief interventions. Nurses and other medical professionals in the municipal health clinic can be trained on screening and intervention... Young entry psychologists and counselors can be trained and enlisted to assist with the case loads. Consider to enlist and engage volunteers from the church and civic-religious organizations to build on the momentum of these people who are seeking change.

6. Capacity building of workers and volunteers to provide brief intervention, coping skills training, coaching and guidance, psycho-education, and support to families. This will be provided by NDRCs trained clinical staff with me and Jay coordinating things.

Separate trainings should be provided for those involved in a) primary care (case managers, counselors and clinicians); b) screening, assessment and brief intervention (nurses, social workers and other professional volunteers); c) psychoeducation and information drive (teachers, church workers and other volunteers) and d) for recovery coaches as well.

I think this proposed actions are doable at municipal or city levels if there is sufficient political will and available funding to carry out the specific activities required. Perhaps, with Miriam’s support, a pilot project in several municipalities can be implemented and documented to formulate the tools and approaches and the various systems required to cope with the overwhelming number of surrenderees that we have all over the country today.

Our resource person, who is originally from Baclayon, recommends the holding of a conference “to unify professional trainers, clinicians and service providers along with concerned government bodies towards one direction... one end.”

I think this recommendation can be done as a national initiative if the Government will identify the lead agency for this program to address the overwhelming number of identified drug users waiting for interventions either by way of counselling or outright rehabilitation program.

Meanwhile, a network of 7 drug rehab centers in the Visayas and Mindanao will hold a conference in Bohol on 01 August, Monday, to formulate strategies to work effectively with LGUs and other sectors in addressing the recovery needs of the surrenderees. Also in the agenda are matters related to the operations of the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) Chemical Dependency Treatment Center jointly managed by Rene Francisco of It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in Ozamis City and Jimmy Clemente of Family and Recovery Management (FARM) center in Minglanilla, Cebu.

I continue to receive feedbacks from friends mostly through Facebook encouraging us to go on with this journey to help address the challenge of having this great number of identified and self-confessed drug users in our midst.

We all lack resources but I think we need not wait for the big program to come to be able for us to help. What we need at this stage will be a mobile team trained to work with drug users and their families, help establish family bonding, facilitate assessment of the drug user’s condition and help provide appropriate services and interventions towards recovery.

Perhaps the drug rehab centers, the Government, as well as bilateral and multilateral donors, can help relevant Government agencies and NGOs recruit and train such mobile teams as initial efforts to move the current process from surrender to recovery.

For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com.

# # #

FINDING A REASON TO CARE

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 07:11:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

In last week’s column, we reported the recommendations presented during consultations with drug addiction professionals on how to address this disturbing phenomenon brought about by the unrelenting campaign against drug users and pushers launched by the new administration. It was just a personal initiative with the modest aim to gather ideas on how to deal with what could develop into a major crisis.

As expected, only a few responded to our personal invitation.

We were quite heartened, however, with the quality of the sharing done in this small café named Crescencia, by the road in Poblacion, Baclayon, where incidentally dozens of drug users under rehabilitation gather every Wednesday night for their weekly sharing of experiences and reflections.

I summarized in my last column what I heard during this series of meetings with friends inspired actually by our group’s reading of the Biblical passage on the Good Samaritan in our action group meeting (AGM), a regular activity of the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) which I joined in 2015 as part of efforts to go back to my faith after years of doubt and skepticism. But that’s another story.

Brod Irwyn Lumuthang and his wife, Sis Joy, who are our AGM facilitators, encouraged us to put into writing what could be done about having so many identified drug users left in the custody of their respective families waiting for further action by counselling or rehabilitation. Somebody joked that if they revert to the old ways of using or in some cases, actually selling drugs, bullets would surely come as their way of salvation.

A grim joke, but newspaper pictures of bloodied bodies by the road, in isolated places in some remote barangays, in crowded buses and terminals, all tend to show what could be expected if drug users and pushers return to their old ways. Effective psychological warfare images, but they may overshadow more caring and humanitarian ways to address drug addiction problems.

In having this overwhelming number of surrenderees, with Bohol, for instance, having 22,000 now and still counting, there’s no way you can go by the insane solution of just killing all of them to get rid of the problem; no way you can go shooting them down like they are stray dogs, those who would revert to the old ways, for sheer lack of guns and bullets, not to mention the lack of bounty money to spread around and the various paper forms to fill to justify the killing and to have probably an official receipt of each killing required to collect the bounty. What a cruel country we have become to imagine this could happen at all!

I reported in last week’s column what the consultation participants shared with us during the meeting. For the benefit of LGUs and NGOs who are interested to access more information about services which can be used to formulate a strategy or simply to decide on what to do about these hundreds of identified drug users now in the custody of their respective families , let me give here some names and contact numberst: Jimmy Clemente, 0998 888 1559; Alain Alino, 0917 325 0252; Rene Francisco, 0918 908 8237; Epoy Jiffy Laroya, 0907 350 5041.

They run a network of around ten or more drug rehab centers in the Visayas and Mindanao and have announced their intention to adjust their admission fees and modify treatment procedures to cope with the thousands of drug users and pushers now identified and obviously pardoned but needing a systematic program of counselling and treatment.

Alain Alino visited Bohol last week to meet with government officers tasked to plan the government’s drug rehab center. He said he also accompanied them to the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag (FITWBK) drug rehab center in Laya, Baclayon to see first-hand what is being done in the facility.

Rene Francisco went around the province last week-end to look for venues for possible tent cities, his proposed strategy to cope with hundreds who have no access to treatment services. He is expected to attend a conference this weekend in Iloilo City to discuss his recommended strategy.

For his part, Jimmy Clemente, is organizing what he calls a “Unity Conference” among drug abuse professionals from various drug rehabilitation centers this week-end in Iloilo City to be able to identify collaborative approaches regarding drug rehabilitation which can be presented later to target LGUs and other agencies.

Meanwhile, Miriam P. Cue, noted psychologist originally from my adopted town, Baclayon, emailed last 18 July her proposed strategy since she could not make it to the consultation meeting on account of her usually tight work schedule at the New Day Rehabilitation Center in Davao City and her engagements with international organizations.

We meant to present her proposed strategy in this week’s column but we decided to post the entire strategy in our Facebook pages and blogs last week to make her ideas available to as many people as possible. It is timely to do so because provincial governments and the Municipal LGUs all over the country are preparing their respective plans on how to handle the situation of having hundreds of drug users waiting for some kind of treatment or counselling and I believe that her ideas will be quite useful at this time.

I have known her for more than two years for her work and that of her colleagues at the New Day Recovery Center (NDRC) in Davao City as part of our study of selected drug rehab centers in Visayas and Mindanao. This field research was undertaken prior to the establishment of Bohol's first drug rehab center managed since November last year by the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center of Ozamis City and the Family and Recovery Management (FARM) center of Minglanilla, Cebu.

Miriam P. Cue from Baclayon, Bohol is one of the country's internationally-known drug addiction professional. She is always eager to lend her expertise to the Government and other sectors interested to be involved in this quite unique problem in Bohol and in the country where drug users and pushers have been identified, turning themselves in to police authorities, their numbers growing by leaps and bounds from day to day.

Her credentials is impeccable: Chairperson, Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology at the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC); Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist at NDRC Davao and internationally-known trainer of recovery coaches and other drug addiction professionals.I believe that her proposed strategy will be quite a valuable input to all sectors in Bohol and other provinces who are now preoccupied on how to handle a critical situation resulting from the surrender of thousands of drug users needing a systematic treatment program.

I have provided copies of her proposed strategy to government offices and NGOs who may be interested to implement her ideas. For this column, however, I will limit myself to the last section of her paper because I think it is something in which most of us who are not drug addiction professionals can assist. Here is that portion of her paper she categorizes as Recovery Supports:

“a. Working with Clients through non-clinical services that are used with treatment to support

individual clients in their recovery goals. This can be done by peers and self-help groups.

“b. Working with families through Community Based Programs. The families of all those

surrendered in particular, need to be educated and provided the appropriate supports.

Many of them could be suffering from social stigma now. They may not know what to do

anymore, with their confusion... their co-dependencies and their involvement with the

clients.

“These families were already affected before these users/peddlers surrendered; and these

users/peddlers will go back to their families after treatment and/or intervention. Build and foster health, resilience, wellness and quality of life through the transition of individual clients and client families within the network of families and recovery partners in the community.

“These families and recovery partners play a very critical role in recovery and they can also be tapped for essential supports to our rehabilitation efforts.

“Seek help from the DOH, establish linkages with the Church and various church/faith groups, with the DDB and other government institutions, with UNODC, with rehabilitation centers and facilities, SUD [Substance Use Disorder] treatment professionals and other treatment-providers outside Bohol for needed supports.

“Not all may need treatment. Some of them may only need psycho-social support in their efforts to find acceptance, amnesty, redemption and reintegration.

“Please realize as well that SUD treatment for the parolees, and/or probationers (whatever you call these offenders) differ from the treatment of those who have not been in conflict with the law and/or those in jail or in prison. Their freedom may be curtailed but they still have greater access to drugs and alcohol than those who are incarcerated, hence, the greater potential for relapse and recidivism.

“Many of the "surrenderees" may have a co-occurring anti-social personality disorder, or a conduct disorder (for those below 18); many of them may be spiritually empty and financially impoverished.

“Securing their basic needs such as food and shelter, re-examining their values, helping them see the meaning of their life and purpose in this world, and providing more intensive psychotherapy among other treatment strategies to address the co-occuring problem, should help them reintegrate into society.”

Those of us who are not drug addiction professionals will find in this portion of the proposed strategy justification to get more involved. No special qualification required to help facilitate services to reach these drug users, most of them may not need a rehabilitation center to recover. We need not be psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers, as well as doctors and nurses, to assume a role in the current crisis to cope with having thousands of self-confessed drug addicts in our midst, some of them are close friends and relatives.

We need only to find a reason to care. For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com

###NMP/21 July 2016/1.06 p.m.

PROPOSED STRATEGY BY NOTED PSYCHOLOGIST FROM BACLAYON, BOHOL - MIRIAM P. CUE

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 10:54:00 +0000

We meant to present this in our column for next week, but we think this proposed strategy from noted Psychologist Miriam P. Cue cannot wait that long.

She could not make it to the consultation with drug addiction professionals we scheduled last week, but she was kind enough to email her thoughts as response to our appeal for ideas on how to handle the situation of having hundreds of drug users waiting for some kind of treatment or counselling.

Over the past several years, she has given us valuable advice on how to deal with the serious drug addiction problem in our province. Miriam P. Cue from Baclayon, Bohol is one of the country's internationally-known drug addiction professional.

Her proposed strategy will be a valuable input to all sectors in Bohol and other provinces who are now preoccupied on how to handle a critical situation resulting from the surrender of thousands of drug users throughout the country.

Here is her proposed strategy in response to our appeal for assistance to determine a cost-effective approach in handling the surrenderees contained in her email dated 16 July 2016:

Following your brilliant ideas, I would say, your goals are clearly defined, but for the project to work, I would like to suggest this strategy for your consideration:

1. Organization of the "Response Management Team" in partnership with the provincial and local government, the Department of Health, the Church, HEIs and religious-civic groups in Bohol. We all need to work together on this with a Hub and Spokes" strategy to make things work. The hub could be the provincial government as central provincial bureau or headquarters with a designated point person like you to orchestrate things. Every municipality or community should have its own coordinator and point person. Policies and guidelines also need to be established right from the start to avoid if not minimize confusion.

2. Mapping of Treatment Capabilities and Resources.

a. Treatment Professionals and Certified Specialists - We need to know available resources in the province who have the credentials and experience in SUD (Substance Use Disorder) treatment - psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and mental health nurses, clinical social workers and doctors trained in addiction medicine, guidance counselors, etc....

It is important you identify them so you would know whom to tap and where to send referrals.. Given our professional regulatory laws, we need to identify those who are registered and those who are not). We need to identify potential recovery coaches as well...

We can give specialized training courses to those whose education, experience and exposure to the neuroscience, psychology and treatment of SUD and related disorders are relatively limited.

b. Volunteers. We need to map out / identify the service-volunteers - professionals, para professionals and professional groups who can help us address the problem. Cluster the volunteers according to their specific profession, education, experience, affiliation and location so we can train them in areas where they can be most effective or where they can give their best efforts and contribution.

c Facilities. How many treatment facilities do we have in the province? Where are they located? How are these facilities run? Are there any available government owned facilities we can use for this "emergency" situation? How safe and secure are these facilities? Any private individuals who are willing to rent out or volunteer facilities they are not using in response to this overwhelming problem?

d. Financial Support and Resources - how much can the province and the local government units allocate for this this purpose, particularly for training and treatment? Are there any institutions and caring citizens we can identify for possible funding support?
e. Establish Directory of Treatment Capabilities: Resources and Services...

3. Client Registration, Intake and Screening. This should be done as soon as possible so we can start triaging (sorting out those who surrendered according to their distinct problems -addiction severity and related legal and financial issues- and allocating treatment resources according to priorities).

Those who have committed heinous crimes, or those who present potential danger or threat to themselves and/or society must be institutionalized now.

Student help and support should be limited to registration/registration intake and they should not be made to feel obliged to help like asking for their involvement in this project as a class requirement. Please spare them the trauma...

And for student volunteers, debriefing should be done every after work in the field at the end of the day. The story might be more different however for medical clerks who are expected to be more mature.

For this purpose, I suggest we tap municipal health clinics/centers, and the social welfare offices for the task. Training support can be provided if necessary... School Guidance Counselors and Psychology teachers can also help in the effort to make our beloved province drug free...

4. Psychoeducation - This should be provided to all those who care - LGU officials, volunteers, support groups for them to understand the nature of addiction and the economics of the drug trade business. We need to fight social stigma first and awaken interest among people to help and serve. The "I couldn't care less attitude" you are describing in your column Nes could be symptomatic of the social stigma and lack of real understanding about the problem.

5. Capacity Building for the Treatment Professionals, Clinicians and Service-Volunteers/Providers. I can help you prepare the training curricula for the different clusters...As Global Master Trainer under the Colombo Plan International Center for the Certification and Education of Addiction Professionals and the US Department of State Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, I believe I can help..

I already have the commitment of the ICCE Director of Colombo Plan to conduct the Training of Trainers (TOT) here in Manila early next month with the funding support of the US INL through the Director of the Global Demand Reduction Program.

If there is any interested doctor, psychologist or social worker experienced in SUD treatment you would like to endorse as potential trainer for Bohol, please send endorsement and CV ASAP so I can submit his papers to Colombo Plan.for consideration and inclusion in the TOT training.

If you cannot endorse one right now, I will ensure training in Bohol after the TOT I have organized here in Manila. This problem affects all regions in the country, so I hope you realize why we need to work this out on a national scale with the Department of Health and the Professional Regulation Commission who regulates practice of the professions.

6. Further Assessment of those found to be of high risk and addiction severity after screening (strategy # 2). Identify and determine severity of problem for those with a co-occurring psychiatric condition or other mental disorders, those with co-occurring health problems or medical conditions, those with serious legal problems, employment concerns and financial problems, and those with limited education and mental capacities... We need all these information for treatment planning.

7. Client Referral, Treatment and Rehabilitation in the Continuum of Care. This I would like to discuss separately. How long and intensive the treatment and primary care will be, whether residential / in-patient, or outpatient, will depend on client case diagnosis, client motivation and recovery capital. Unless we have the assessment findings, we cannot really say it is good only for 30 days, 3 months, 6 months, I8 months, or forever (as in custodial care)... Certainly, those with co-occurring disorders need specialized services like pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, and longer-term treatment.

7. Recovery Supports:

a. Working with Clients through non-clinical services that are used with treatment to support individual clients in their recovery goals. This can be done by peers and self-help groups.

b. Working with Families through Community Based Programs. The families of all those who surrendered in particular, need to be educated and provided the appropriate supports. Many of them could be suffering from social stigma now. They may not know what to do anymore, with their confusion... their co-dependencies and their involvement with the clients.

These families were already affected before these users/peddlers surrendered; and these users/peddlers will go back to their families after treatment and/or intervention. Build and foster health, resilience, wellness and quality of life through the transition of individual clients and client families within the network of families and recovery partners in the community..

These families and recovery partners play a very critical role in recovery... and they can also be tapped for essential supports to our rehabilitation efforts.

Seek help from the DOH, establish linkages.with the Church and various church/faith groups, with the DDB and other government institutions, with UNODC, with rehabilitation centers and facilities, SUD treatment professionals and other treatment-providers outside Bohol for needed supports...

Not all may need treatment. Some of them may only need psycho-social support in their efforts to find acceptance, amnesty, redemption and reintegration.

Please realize as well that SUD treatment for the parolees, and/or probationers (whatever you call these offenders) differ from the treatment of those who have not been in conflict with the law and/or those in jail or in prison. Their freedom may be curtailed but they still have greater access to drugs and alcohol than those who are incarcerated, hence, the greater potential for relapse and recidivism.

Many of the "surrenderees" may have a co-occurring anti-social personality disorder, or a conduct disorder (for those below 18); many of them may be spiritually empty and financially impoverished. Securing their basic needs such as food and shelter, re-examining their values, helping them see the meaning of their life and purpose in this world, and providing more intensive psychotherapy among other treatment strategies to address the co-occuring problem, should help them reintegrate into society.

I hope these thoughts will be of help. Of course, I am coming from the perspective of a psychologist who has been exposed to SUD counseling and treatment for 40 years now.

7. Recovery Supports:

a. Working with Clients through non-clinical services that are used with treatment to support individual clients in their recovery goals. This can be done by peers and self-help groups.

These families were already affected before these users/peddlers surrendered; and these users/peddlers will go back to their families after treatment and/or intervention.

Build and foster health, resilience, wellness and quality of life through the transition of individual clients and client families within the network of families and recovery partners in the community..These families and recovery partners play a very critical role in recovery... and they can also be tapped for essential supports to our rehabilitation efforts.

Not all may need treatment. Some of them may only need psycho-social support in their efforts to find acceptance, amnesty, redemption and reintegration.

I hope these thoughts will be of help. Of course, I am coming from the perspective of a psychologist who has been exposed to SUD counseling and treatment for 40 years now.

Your partner for a better world,
Miriam P. Cue, PhD, RPsy, RPm, RGC, ICAP-II, MAC

Chairperson, Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology
Professional Regulation Commission

Registered Psychologist (Lic # 000001)
Registered Psychometrician (Lic # 000001)
Registered Guidance Counselor (Lic # 0002011)
PAP Certified Clinical Psychologist
PAP Certified Counseling Psychologist
PAP Certified Assessment Psychologist
PAP Certified I/O Psychologist
Internationally Accredited Addiction Professional (CP-ICCE)
Global Master Trainer in the Universal Treatment Curriculum for Substance Use Disorder
Master Addiction Counselor (NADAC - USA)

Consulting Psychologist/Retainer
New Day Recovery Center (Davao City)

Note: Much thanks for this comprehensive and valuable contribution to our quest for an effective strategy. We will make this available to as many people as possible.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Sun, 17 Jul 2016 19:37:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

As everyone knows, the number of so-called surrenderees, a term adapted widely by the media to refer to drug users who signed with government and police authorities not to use illegal chemical substances again, soared to staggering proportion early in the week all over the country. In Bohol alone, the number reported increased from something around 3,000 to 4,600 during the weekend and then to 6,000 climbing to 9,000 at the start of this week. (Note: it's now 18,000 based on latest compilation!)

My initial response was to go find a cave elsewhere and bring my family to hole in there until the imagined holocaust trips over. When I look around, however, in-between reading Facebook posts, I realized there was no panic at all about the situation.

Everything appears normal. Facebook reflects, at least as far our network is concerned, shown on public mode, that people are mostly having fun, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, feasting and cavorting on the white-sand beach, admiring sunsets and the vast expanse of the sea around us as though seeing these natural wonders for the first time, enjoying life to the hilt despite the grim possibility of a crime rise in our midst as a result of untreated mental condition arising from repeated drug use.

My two sons, Gabe and Odoni, both in their twenties, would come home past midnight as usual and I suppose, despite all these drug buy-bust operations ending up in quite gory bloody scenes in the bush, crowded bus, busy street and all, everything is as normal as can be in our beloved Bohol. Hence, more blessings, oh Lord. Everything is A-OK, bless our leaders in all sectors, government and non-government that because of their deafening silence about it all, everything must be alright under the new regime.

In the popular imagination, at least, everything is just OK and so why bother. Enjoy your beer and make San Miguel richer and happier! I must be in the wrong planet, worrying about it all. Anyway, for whatever it is worth, I am sharing some advice from friends, old and newly-found ones, on what could be a good strategy to cope with a situation that we have 9,000 drug users outside some form of a rehabilitation or counselling process.

And so here it is, how a personal quest unfolded during the week which I am sharing not for any dramatic value (read: gossip!) but to raise key issues that could somehow result in a response to a potentially risky situation which can scar us for life emotionally and otherwise.

13 July, Sunday. We had our Action Group Meeting (AGM) with our cluster of brods and sis from the organization I joined in 2015, the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals (BCBP) held at Crescencia Café at my in-laws’ place in Baclayon. As is the practice during such small-group meetings, we chose a passage from the Bible, pick up a phase and then individually share our thoughts with the other group members.

The assigned passage for this AGM was Luke 10:25-37, a popular one, known by many cathechists and Bible Study Groups the world over as “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

5.05 a.m. There was a loud bang followed by total darkness. Now I have a flashlight and lighted candle-in-a-glass jar near this laptop. I am thinking there must be a message there, the brown out happening as I review the passage from the Bible by my side.

But I refuse to be distracted by any further thought. To continue: I chose this sentence from the assigned text: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and used it as the basis for my sharing.

After the meeting, during dinner, the conversation turned to this matter about the surrenderees. All of a sudden, the whole room was overwhelmed with excited voices from the dozen or so members indicating keen interest on the subject by our Action Group which I took it to mean this must be a popular sentiment, that many people would like to share their bit to do something about the situation.

Our couple leaders, Irwyn and Joy Lumuthang, stayed behind to discuss the issue some more and before they left, they said they would bring the matter to the attention of the Chapter President, Jun Navarro. I immediately set to work putting flesh to the ideas which had been thrown around before, drafted a concept and named it the Good Samaritan Project, no doubt inspired by the Biblical selection for the day.

Let me directly quote pertinent portions of the draft concept so that readers may also share their thoughts with us or their neighbors, whoever they conceive them to be.

Overall Goal

To ensure that each surrenderee is provided a comprehensive package of services from pre-treatment to full recovery.

Specific Objectives

a. To establish a baseline data on the condition of each surrenderee which will serve as basis for treatment and post-treatment interventions;

b. To ensure systematic provision of counselling and other services with the full cooperation and assistance of the family and the local community;

c. To monitor regularly the progress of each client and adjust inputs accordingly;

d. To document outstanding cases of full recovery and successful integration with both the family and the community.

Strategy

To achieve its objectives, the project will adopt an implementation strategy with the following features:

a) Partnership with all key sectors with specific inputs to deliver;

c) Organization of families of clients to ensure spiritual and other support to target clients.

d) Designation of a pilot area where implementation approaches can be tested based on current organizational capability, existence of willing partners, and affordability.

Key Activities

-Recruit and train volunteers who can serve as counsellors for both drug abuse victims and their respective families;

-Formulate and implement a short-term orientation or basic skills training course for all the volunteers who are willing to do this work;

-Liaise with partner drug rehab centers and institutions and seek their advice on how to fast-tract treatment at substantially lower costs;

-Get an updated list of surrenderees and all relevant data about them for planning purposes.

Note: This is a tentative list. More can be added.

Organization and Management

Details will be provided in accordance with the role to be undertaken by the organization, whether as proponent/implementation agency or one of the partner agencies.

I used this project concept as basic document to discuss with others from various organizations who shared the same concern with us.

Due to limited space, I will just summarize here what have been given to us during the discussion or through the internet:

From Rene Francisco, CEO of FARM It Chemical Dependency Center in Bohol who has had eighteen years’ experience in rehabilitation work. He suggested a 45-day program for those who need rehabilitation. In coordination with LGUs and other institutions, old unutilized buildings can be used to serve as rehab centers. In the absence of these old structures in the municipality, having the surrenderers in tent cities could be an alternative structure. He is ready to work with a network of drug rehab centers in Cebu and Mindanao who can provide

training to rehab workers and volunteers in Bohol.

Alain Alinio who is from the FARM Drug Rehab Center in Cebu and also a network of such facilities in Visayas and Mindanao has discussed their proposal with representatives of the Provincial Government and will be willing to offer terms, too, for doing rehabilitation work with the surrenderees.

Fr. Clarito Rara also attended the meeting last 15 July in Baclayon. He has had 17 years of experience in counselling drug abuse victims in a military camp at the Veterans Hospital in Houston, Texas. He has since returned to Bohol and runs a counselling clinics in one of the parishes. He is willing to be part of the planning and implementation team to address the critical problem regarding the surrenderees.

Bel Jayco of the International Learning Center in Cortez says she can mobilize social workers who can help in documenting cases and provide auxiliary work in the various centers. She also says she can liaise with the government to be partner in this venture.

Today, Saturday, I will go around with Rene Francisco to visit some structures in the municipalities that can serve as rehab centers for this growing number of drug users being identified each day.

We will come up with a detailed project design next week for presentation with the Government, the Church and other key sectors wanting to do something about the need to extent rehabilitation services to the drug users who have surrendered these past few weeks. For comments: Email: npestelos@gmail.com

NEXT STEPS AFTER THE ARREST OR SURRENDER OF DRUG USERS

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:36:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

In response to the no-nonsense campaign of the Duterte administration to address the country’s serious drug abuse problem, police authorities and local government units have launched a vigorous campaign to apprehend known drug pushers and users and immobilize them either by shooting them down if they resist, making them sign a document so they will refrain from selling or using drugs or to change their evil ways by seeking treatment for their chemical dependency.

This news item appears in one national on-line news service of a major TV network:

“The Philippine National Police in Bohol said the number of drug users and pushers who surrendered this week already reached 3,000, a report on News To Go on Friday said.

“In Tagbilaran, the pews inside a church were all taken as drug users and pushers surrendering to authorities filled the place.

“The surrenderees signed affidavits saying they will change their ways.

“No rehabilitation center, however, is available to take in all those who surrendered, the report said.

Police resorted to asking barangay officials to monitor those [those who surrendered] in the meantime.

“One psychologist said however that it is important to have a rehabilitation center to house [them]since the process of recovery is long, the report said.”

Of course, the reporter was wrong in saying there is no drug rehab center in the province. Well, there is in fact one in Laya, Baclayon run jointly by the Family and Recovery Management (FARM) center in Minglanilla, Cebu and the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in Ozamis City. Its establishment has been brokered by our NGO, the Bohol Local Development Foundation (BLDF) so that the family-owned Balay Kahayag retreat house and training center could be converted into a drug rehab facility.

We devoted 35 columns, a good 47% of the total, solely on the need for a drug rehab facility in the province since we started writing for this paper on 11 January 2015. It somehow makes us sad that the reporter is not aware the facility now exists after a rather long and tortuous journey taken to put it in place.

Yes, after a year-long series of activities consisting of visits to rehab centers in the Visayas and Mindanao, consultations with possible stakeholders and partners and lots of research mostly internet-based, we were able to negotiate successfully with two of the centers we visited to use the existing Balay Kahayag facilities (a multi-purpose hall good for 100 participants; an activity center for 25 clients; a dormitory good for 38 in-house guests; a two-story guest house).

This facility was named the FARM It Works Balay Kahayag Chemical Dependency Treatment Center or FITWBK. For those who have difficulty remembering the acronym, it is known simply as Balay Kahayag or BK.

A company whose younger technical officers tested positive on drugs virtually pressured the staff to start admission and treatment operations in November last year. All these early birds had completed by this time the initial six-month treatment and the three-month after-care regimen. Around the time of the proclamation of President Digong Duterte, who promptly announced an iron fist policy against drug addiction, occupancy at the facility soared to almost full capacity of 30 clients.

Despite lack of advertisements and promotions, families with one or two members having a drug addiction problem, swarmed the facility with requests for treatment and accommodation. In our column of 22 May 2016, we noted:

“The existing 30-client drug rehab center in our province, put up by two private entities from Ozamis City and Minglanilla, Cebu, even if fully operational, will not make a dent on the current drug addiction problem in Bohol. We need more than one center or an expanded one to cope with the problems created by the illegal drug trade which has taken seemingly secure root in the province during recent years.”

Meanwhile, as a vital milestone in the history of Bohol’s first and only drug rehab center, Fr. Val Pinlac who heads the Vatican-funded Bohol Rehabilitation and Rebuilding Project (BRRP) has been elected Chair of the newly-registered Board of Trustees of the non-stock and non-profit Foundation for FITWBK. This marks a new milestone in the history of this vital facility.

On the prodding of Fr. Val, we prepared with BRRP staff a proposal to an international NGO, the For a Better Tomorrow (FBT) that when approved, will enable FITWBK to expand its intake capacity from the current 30 to 50 clients.

It will also ensure that the FITWBK can admit more clients from families who cannot afford the PHP 25,000 per month fee.

I think many people agree that putting drug users in their respective homes after signing agreement with police authorities that they will no longer use shabu or other illegal drugs is not a viable solution to the drug addiction problem in our province or, for that matter, anywhere in the Philippines where police authorities, eager to please the new national leadership, are eager to arrest and even kill many drug addicts.

It is common knowledge that drug addiction is a brain disease and time is needed to repair what has been damaged by repeated drug use. Hence, in most cases, residential or in-house treatment for drug addiction is needed.

Some drug abuse cases may not require confinement in a drug rehab facility, but diagnosis is still needed and a mode of treatment is required rather than mere physical confinement. The other risk is that it will be quite impossible to monitor individually the movement of thousands of drug abusers while they are supposed to be technically in restricted movement in their homes or local communities.

Since we cannot fast-track the construction of drug rehab centers in relation to the current demand, it is best to take simple and doable steps to meet the need for diagnosis of each client to determine whether or not it is best for the client to get home-based counselling/treatment or be confined in a drug rehab facility.

This will require the recruitment, training and deployment of an inter-agency team given full administrative support to be able to carry its day-to-day tasks. Membership in this team can be systematically planned by provincial authorities with each municipality represented in its team to ensure immediate replication of approaches and strategies for dealing with drug dependents and their immediate families who, in most cases, are themselves co-dependents rather than facilitators of the treatment and healing process.

It is highly recommended that the provincial government designate a core team tasked with responsibility to implement a workable strategy in dealing with those who have been arrested and detained in their respective homes.

Potential members of this inter-agency core team need to be of one mind and have the same basic skills and attitude that will enable them to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently. A ten-day training for the team can be conducted which will include the following:

· Introduction to Drug Addiction Prevention Science
Basic Counselling Skills for Addiction Professionals
Community Outreach
Ethics for Addiction Professionals
Role and Tasks of Recovery Coaches

To ensure a pool of trained service providers, it is important that the initial training involve as many as 30 to 40 participants. The most advanced of them in terms of KAS (Knowledge, Attitude and Skill) may be recruited and deployed and given advance skills training. A mobile provincial core team of trainers and facilitators can then organize and train their counterparts per LGU or a cluster of LGUs.

One of our partner drug rehab centers, the one based in Ozamis City, the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, has scheduled a hands-on workshop with the DOH as partner on the requirements or guidelines in establishing a drug rehab facility. The venue is right at their center in Ozamis City scheduled on 12 to 14 July. For details, email the Convenor, Rene Franciso, at renefranph@yahoo.com.

It is important at this critical stage for each LGU to establish prototype Outreach and Drop-In Centers (ODICs) to provide systematic counselling, diagnostic and referral services to families burdened with the drug abuse problem. I have written about ODICs several times in this column (02 May 2015; 30 May 2015; 13 June 2015).

We have provided several options to establish this facility to complement the services of the drug rehab center. Our NGO has provided estimates on how either the LGU or the Church can establish this facility which can complement efforts to do something about the current phenomenon of having thousands of drug pushers and users coming out from the dark, shedding their anonymity and face either rehabilitation or deterioration in their condition.

May we all be guided, LGUs and non-LGUs alike, to make the wisest course of action against this nightmare brought about by the drug menace in our midst. For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com. ###

OF SUICIDE AND METAMORPHOSIS

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 16:48:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

This week will be one not quite easy to forget due to the message it brings about death and rebirth, of suicide and metamorphosis. It’s one of those weeks that builds one’s capacity to hope and persevere despite sufferings and uncertainties.

First was the news about a priest ending his life by hanging himself. I felt something within me wanting to die, too, upon hearing the news from an early morning radio program broadcast live globally through the web. It must be a feeling shared by Filipinos who were listening in several countries in varying time zones.

I have heard of previous suicide cases in Bohol but this one is most shocking because it involves someone who is supposed to be a source of hope in times of distress. As soon as I heard the news, I posted it on Facebook at 9.10 a.m. on Tuesday, 28 June.

In that post, I noted: “First time I heard a case of a priest committing suicide. This seems to indicate the need for counselling services to be available. A priest is supposed to be a source of hope. What led him to kill himself?”

It was announced that there would be an official statement to be issued by the Diocese of Tagbilaran. Meanwhile, I preoccupied myself reading comments on my post which came within the hour after posting, something like a knee-jerk response to the shocking news.

From Sydney, Australia, Belen Mendoza writes:

“I've worked and lived with priests and nuns for many years, 36 years to be exact. It doesn't make me an expert on how to handle them but it allows us to communicate with them to ease the challenges in their vocation/mission.

“I hope with what happened, it will open our eyes and minds to be a little kinder and supportive to their noble mission. I think, we Filipinos, put our priests in pedestals. As such, they try to live from our expectations that they try to be perfect in our eyes.

“They are humans,too, like us. They are messengers of God, delivering His Word for us so that with His Word OUR JOY MAY BE COMPLETE! They are not God. ( i hope this does not sound like a homily. ) Priests do choose their own confessor that they are comfortable with. For the lack of a confessor, they need an ear who will listen and a shoulder they can lean on. This is where lay people like us can help especially when they are thousands of miles away from family. Let us pray for his soul.”

From San Diego, California, Naomi JD Esguerra Saboura has this to say:

“Hi Nestor, like what Lolabee said, priests are humans too. He must have been suffering from some form of mental illness, most likely severe depression. Depression, like diabetes, is a disease; a disease of the brain. It is treatable but not curable.

“While not all people suffering from depression are suicidal, it is the leading cause of suicide. Priests, nuns, doctors, scientists, etc are not immune from mental illness. People with mental illness hide their problem because of the stigma associated with it.

“In our parish here in San Diego, we have a mental health ministry. The goal is to eradicate the stigma of mental illness, through education. We provide community resources, spiritual support and prayers to those who seek our help. Pls update & post..I will share this with our ministry. Let's pray for the repose of his soul, and for those he left behind, esp his family. They must be in pain.”

Naomi says in another post: “Here is the statistics in the US: 1 out of 4 people suffer from depression. In the past 2-3 years we have 2 suicide [cases] in our parish, and they are Filipino parishioners.”

Rodolfo C. Kintanar, former classmate and class 1987 president at the Asian Institute of Management, commented: “There was a conflict he could not resolve except through self-destruction. Nes. Too bad nobody was able to reach out to him. But then God has a reason for allowing it to happen.”

In response to him, I said: “Our social workers and psychologist must be able to look deeper into this case. First time in my life I heard of such a case.”

He replied: “There are other ways of suicide Nes. Running into a head on collision with another vehicle. Or disappearing at sea. Look at it this way: Heaven needed the priest immediately. God's ways are many and strange.” Ah, OK, something like dark humor, but it was an effort to ease the pain.

Fr. Fernando Po, fellow advocate against drug abuse, says: “unfathomable... unthinkable. Irreconcilable ... unreasonable! I knew Fr. Mar... he was my student in the college seminary ... quiet & unassuming... humble & simple! everything now is between him & god! the human side of him ruled over his life... satan did it... can i say that?”

Megg Borja, who works at Raffles & Co. in Quezon City, says: “We all need a lot of unconditional caring.”

Rene Francisco, CEO of FITWBK Chemical Dependency Center in Laya, Baclayon has this to say: “Thru my experience with helping people I came across three priests, one from Scotland and two Pilipinos...they all said one of the biggest problem of priests is extreme loneliness...depression can trigger self-destruction.”

Al Palomar, literary critic based in Norman, Oklahoma, has this theory: “The priest needs our compassion. Celibacy has never been good for anyone ---priests or no priest. Not healthy either because it could also trigger prostate cancer. It would work only if priests were also eunuchs.”

Dody Aspiras from Fremont, California opines: “The priest's suicide could have been triggered by dementia with lewy bodies, the disease that drove Robin Williams to his death, also by suicide - an uncontrollable urge.”

Lex Librero, retired professor from UP Los Banos, says: “It’s strange to me.” OMG, says Delia Velez Realista from Cagayan de Oro City. Lolita Castañeda-Ayaay of Antipolo City says: “May Jesus by his great mercy have forgiven the poor parish priest.” “Sad,” says Leila Manding-Café of Albur, Bohol.

Teresita Crisogono from Las Vegas and Marlene Paje Rodriguez, former NEDA Director for Region 7 both shared suspicion there might be foul play. The police however confirmed it to be suicide, not murder.

Rene Eune Pueblos Ponte from Loon, Bohol says, “Our prayers!”, while Rosalinda Maguan Monsanto Sumicad a nurse from Newcastle upon Thyne, England, has this to say: “The Lord God is the Supreme & Ultimate Judge for all of us... may he rest in peace ' Sir Nestor Maniebo Pestelos....our sympathy to the bereaved family & friends & the church too...”

I received a record 49 likes and comments in a little more than an hour, indicating keen interest and high level of sympathy for the priest who took his own life. Sources said that he had been suffering from colon cancer and the pain must have driven him to take his own life.

The pain must have been so great that it overwhelmed his faith, which considers suicide as sin. It has to be considered, too, that not all who suffer from colon cancer resort to suicide. A local paper reported an excerpt from the official statement from the Diocese of Tagbilaran:

“This sad incident might have shaken the faith of some of our brothers and sisters, but we pray that the grace of God will turn this mourning into a profound experience of faith and a more intimate personal relationship with God. With God’s mercy and guidance, we resolve to strengthen our solidarity anchored on love, humility, and compassion—the Priesthood of Christ,” said [Bishop] Medroso.

I did a little bit of research in the internet and I found that the Philippines has still the lowest suicide rate in Asia:

Suicides per 100,000 people per year

South Korea (28.9)
Japan (18.5)
Myanmar (13.1)
Thailand (11.4)
Cambodia (9.4)
Laos (8.8)
China (7.8)
Singapore (7.4)
Brunei (6.4)
Vietnam (5)
Indonesia (4.3)
Malaysia (3)
Philippines (2.9)

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported however that somebody commits suicide every 40 seconds.

For the past years, according to the report, suicide rates all over the world have risen, including in the Philippines. Data from the National Statistics Office noted that in the Philippines, the suicide rate from 1984 to 2005 went up from 0.46 to seven out of every 200,000 men; up from 0.24 to two for every 200,000 women.

While the figures might seem insignificant compared with those from neighboring countries that recorded the highest suicide rates, the increase in numbers is noticeably high.

It is a common misconception that suicides are a Western and developed country phenomena. The truth is, it is a major global health problem that occurs in every part of the world.

The WHO analyzed 10 years of research and data on suicide from around the world, involving 172 countries. It was found out that:

Around 800,000 people kill themselves every year.
Southeast Asia made up over a third of the annual rate.
It was the 15th leading cause of death for 2012 all over the world; second among young people, aged 15 to 29.
Those over 70 were the most likely to take their own lives.
Seventy five percent of global suicide occurred in low- and middle-income countries in 2012.
In richer countries, three times as many men as women die by suicide.
The most suicide-prone countries were Guyana (44.2 per 100,000), followed by North and South Korea (38.5 and 28.9 respectively).
The most frequently used methods globally are pesticide poisoning, hanging and firearms, but jumping from buildings is a common method in highly urbanized areas in Asia.

In Bohol, there was the high-profile case of a young father shooting to death his wife and two sons inside their burning care before committing suicide. There were unconfirmed reports of young people committing suicide due to drug abuse, depression and other causes. It’s about time an in-depth study be undertaken of these cases as basis for counselling in schools, offices, churches and clinics. We need to get the hotline we can call in case we suspect that somebody seems to be on the verge of committing suicide.

Lack of communication with someone who can listen has been cited in some studies as the reason for suicide cases.

Despite the gloom brought about by the suicide of the parish priest of Loboc, the week has brightened up with the proclamation of the 16^th President of the Philippines, former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. True to his word, the whole nation saw his “metamorphosis,” his own word, from a foul-mouthed local executive to somebody we all can respect, not only by the 16 million Filipinos who voted for him, but by the entire country.

I think the whole nation agrees with the editorial of the country’s number 1 newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, in its July 1 issue, which says that “by the end of his stirring inaugural address, there were more people rooting for him”

Indeed on the first hour of his Presidency, the new head of state has succeeded to show he has transformed himself into a leader with a vision valid and broad enough to unite us all against the evils of crime and illegal drugs, as well as corruption in the government.

Truly the week has been a journey from grief brought about by the suicide of a priest to a celebration of hope in the transformation of a new leader with potential to unite us to build a stronger and more prosperous Philippines. For comments, email npestelos@gmail.com ###

NMP/2 July 2016/12.01 a.m.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 04:57:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

This week has been quite a ride. I had to be in Manila with my two sons, Gabe and Odon, to attend the wedding of another son, my namesake, from a previous relationship, whose mother passed away years ago due to illness which I ascribed to stresses and worries on account of her incarceration under the martial law regime.

The day after we arrived, my son brought us to her future wife’s family and I dutifully answered anticipated queries on my life story. I felt I had to assure them that despite the convulsions in my personal life decades before, I started all over again in Bohol and now I am living quite a normal life.

Although they were civil about it, I knew I had to somehow erase possible worries that they might have about my past and their daughter’s future as part of our family.

A day before the wedding, a Sigma Deltan, from a sorority allied with our fraternity, Upsilon Sigma Phi, during our student days at UP Los Banos, arranged lunch at a Makati Resto so I could meet three fraternity brothers whom I had not seen for half a century. Over a two-hour lunch, the topic was more on what happened to me from the time I disappeared from the campus in the late Sixties. They saw each other quite often after graduation and I sensed how close their families were since they maintained contact over the years and had no need to be in some kind of question-and-answer forum during lunch.

During the wedding ceremony held at the chapel near what is called the Archbishop’s Palace in Mandaluyong and the reception at a restaurant called Lemuria at nearby Horseshoe Village, the overriding theme of the various events in which I participated was that of starting over again.

While on the plane back to Tagbilaran, in-between naps and exchanging smiles and occasional pleasantries with the pretty and heavily made up Air Asia stewardesses, I preoccupied the conscious and subconscious part of my brain with thoughts about what seemed to be the art and science of starting over again. I realized that this theme prosaically termed starting over again is quite a dominant one in our personal and real life, in literature or sometimes in our own imagination.

Outside the routine of daily existence, this theme is elegantly packaged as, say, hope and redemption, death and resurrection, despair and triumph of the spirit, and so on. This theme of falling and rising each time we fall and similar admonitions from early childhood to old age, in the inevitable journey from birth to the end of mortal life, we are caught in what seems to be the Art and Science of Starting Over Again, presumably after we fall.

The Art aspect may refer to the unique ways we do it as in writing a poem and doing a painting; each one decides on how to start a new life from the ashes of our misfortunes, so to speak. Do we start another fire and do we collect the ashes and bury them so that we can have a symbolic gesture to begin a new Life? Indeed we start all over again in our own unique way.

The Science bit is how to do the basics of logic-based methodology of slaying the dragons of incomplete knowledge, misconceptions and subjectivism in defining new objectives and strategies as we mend the mental fences wreaked by miscalculation in our planning and in reading motives of friends and other relations involved somehow in our day-to-day decisions.

And so it came to pass as I went through the wedding ceremony as a father to the groom, whose visits to our place became fewer each year which was probably his assertion of independence, financial or emotional, half of my brain was processing the circumstances of our life together, its ups and downs, and the many starting overs we had to go through as we sought to define and re-define our respective roles as father and son through varying stages of growth and reflection and re-growth.

And so it came to pass as I narrated briefly during the wedding reception our story as father and son in the context of a people’s struggle against injustice and oppression and eventual liberation, at least in symbolic terms rather than in substance, half of my brain was processing the myths and phantoms of imagination we have pursued and discarded over the years characterized by countless starting overs, each time with a resolve to have a new lease in life despite previous downfall and misfortunes.

And so it came to pass as I answered queries regarding where I have been during the past half a century from highly-esteemed fraternity brothers Gerry Collado, Rey Villareal and Naz Racoma, whom I knew as college scholars during our UPLB days and are now distinguished alumni from Harvard, Rutgers, Cornell and AIM, half of my brain was processing the life and times of 33 of our generation, arrested, tortured and made to vanish from mortal existence to achieve immortality in the lives of those who continue to start the struggle all over again in the hills and slums and remote islands using digital tools of mass awareness and redemption from poverty and despair.

In-between those events related to family life and social affiliations, which have endured through decades of physical absence and non-Facebook existence, I have subsisted on a mixed mental diet of news from both print and TV and it gave me a sense that this country after several administrations run by the elite classes, is also going through a process of starting all over again.

The recent national election was framed in the popular imagination as a battle between good and evil. Which side you are on depends on which candidate you choose and not the party to which you belong.

Indeed it’s democracy Philippine-style which is actually reflective of the cacique system, of landlordism, in the context of a modern capitalist state with landowners owning the means and tools of the new market place and have evolved into lords of industry and political power while the poor remain poorer and multiply their kind so many times over year after year.

As in previous after-elections scenario, the elected Great Leader has proclaimed a new era of CHANGE in capital letters and portrayed himself as the knight in shining armor this time ready to charge the windmills of crime, illegal drug trade, corruption and incompetent governance.

This starting-over-again drama, however, has a new plot, interesting and creative in several respects:

-a President, self-proclaimed leftist of a different hue but actually neither of both sides, committed to eliminating crimes and to decentralized governance through Federalism but showing dictatorial tendencies and also crude public behavior(perhaps only for appearances to appeal to macho psychology of the Filipinos, probably part of the Art of Starting Over Again, eh?) ;

-a Vice President, self-proclaimed pro-poor leader but without portfolio in an administration that is supposed to be pro-poor;

-a minority party of 3 members transforming itself as a majority coalition for change across diverse political persuasions signing up more than 300 members in less than three weeks after election, which validates the view that our politics still revolves around personalities, feudal and dynastic lords actually, rather than principles and firm stand on issues;

-the party of the proletariat transforming itself as collaborator of the predominantly elite classes in a coalition of convenience to get better deals in a global capitalist-driven economy for the benefit of bigger nations and their monopolist investors;

-the majority religions trying to gain moral leadership and political influence after harsh criticisms about some lapses indicating corrupt practices and moral lapses among some bishops and priests;

-the militant youth and labor sectors unable to mount credible opposition and expand their mass base to be an effective force for social transformation in Philippine society;

-the established mass media, particularly those in Metro Manila, being mocked almost from day to day by the President-elect as being tools of vested interests rather than a credible partner for nation-building;

-the social media now dominated by the more articulate and affluent among the youth who use irreverence, as well as weird syntax and language, to confuse their elders and attract attention to themselves in pursuit of the greater love of self; and

-the continuing practice to mix entertainment gossips and publicity stories with legitimate news in programs broadcast nation-wide followed by soap operas from 7.30 to 10.30 p.m. Monday to Friday to feed our voracious appetite with mostly romantic stories about love triangles and juvenile loves.

Now back to the scene of my son and his bride getting married in a Catholic ritual with a priest who now and then would interrupt in good humor recitation from a prepared script. At one point, he said he knew my son was not that religious but he should follow the counsel of the Church and those present in this most solemn of ceremony so he and his wife would remember Christ always and the need to love and serve Him.

There was no mention about the country and the poor but, I suppose, it was sort of given that you consecrate your marriage vows in the unspoken context of liberating the poor from the constraints of poverty and inequality. Otherwise, despite our privileges and entitlements, we will be distracted now and then by noise of protests and probably gunfire, in a country now on the eve of starting all over again in a never-ending cycle of hope, despair, redemption, despair, hope …

I now enjoin our teleserye nation to kneel and pray as we start all over again a new cycle of despair and redemption - hopefully with the real heroes and heroines winning in the end.

For comments, email: npestelos@gmail.com

# # #

NMP/24Jun2016/11.36 a.m.

Communication 101

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 07:10:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

I have assumed all along that politicians, as well as the rest of us who consider it our duty to comment on what they say, know the basics of communication as taught to us in college or, in the case probably of the majority, as learned from reading books on the subject or from the friendly advice of friends and colleagues in the work place.

It looks like this assumption is being proved wrong judging from the quality of discourse in public fora or in both the established and social media. I think it’s not due to lack of knowledge that these lessons get lost in delivery or in translation. It’s just that along the way we get carried away by our biases that we cannot be objective anymore in the way we evaluate messages thrown our way.

In most cases, our ego usually gets in the way of our listening to other people’s views, especially if they contradict our own. We insist on what we believe in and totally disregard the fact that others may hold views which we have also to respect and take into account.

I think most of us are familiar with the basic two-way communication process, the Source-Message-Channel-Receiver (SMCR) model with F for Feedback to complete it. I keep running through my brain the scenes from the past three weeks and I am still trying to reconcile what I have believed in all along about our responsibility as communicators.

J still cannot accept that sound bites can replace policy statements; rudeness can replace civil discourse; cursing can be done uncensored in public; and insults can replace civility in discussing serious matter of importance to the nation and in full view of an entire public and the world, including youth and children whom we have been teaching “good manner and right conduct” at home and school.

In so brief a time, we have displayed for all the world to see the worst in our party politics all because we have shelved conveniently our knowledge about Communication 101, if not our values as a nation with its proud history of heroic struggles against foreign invaders and local despots. In sound bites rather than in legitimate fora, verbal assaults were launched against the Catholic Church, journalists and the mass media, the United Nations and several allied countries with whom we have diplomatic relations and are sources of employment for millions of our workers and professionals.

Pronouncements about the planned burial of a dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the possible appointment of his son to a Cabinet post, the release of a former President from hospital arrest, some prominent politicians accused of corruption from detention, all insult the memory of hundreds of families whose sons and daughters gave up their lives for the cause of freedom and democracy in our country.

Wrong source, wrong message, wrong channel. No less than UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon reacted quite strongly against the implied threat to the lives of Filipino journalists in a country with a high incidence of violence against media practitioners. On the other hand, none of the key political parties, including those in the so-called opposition, issued a statement on this turn of events in this country they always pledge to serve and make great again every election time. Instead, the whole nation witnessed a massive exodus to the so-called Coalition of Change led by the new party in power, which increased their ranks from 3 members to 350 in Congress in a matter of weeks.

The militant Marxist Left, if they are still called that way, joined the exodus enticed by the release of political prisoners and the promise to hold no less than four portfolios in the Cabinet. The Church wisely remained quiet when the new leader of the nation started rattling some skeletons in their closet which included the request for a Pajero from a President by a Bishop, etc.

Announcements about bounties which could amount to billions of pesos for the killing of drug lords and their pushers, in lieu impliedly of due process, did not merit any response from any human rights group. When the head of the Commission of Human Rights complained, he was promptly called an idiot by the President-elect which must have brought chill to many a spine among human rights groups.

When people commented about this in the media, they were promptly labelled hypocrites by some of his followers. One of the avid fans even blamed the media for not being inspiring by reporting on such stuff or other negative events. It is conveniently forgotten it’s not the media who are acting weird and saying or doing outrageous stuff. They are merely reporting what is being said and done because that’s their role. Why indeed blame the messenger?

The source of the message in the communication process is critical in having a message noticed or given prominence and commented on by the public or the target receivers or audience. In all the media events of the past few weeks, the prominence of the source and his hard-earned 16 million votes have not been used to influence the quality of what is supposed to be a national dialogue between the party in power and the people. Everything seemed to be unplanned.

Everything depended on what would come out from the traditionally but often irritatingly foul mouth of the President-elect and to the surprise of many people, such mindless display of unplanned messages occurred with surprising regularity, something inexcusable if you are involving a credible source fresh from an overwhelming mandate from the people.

This inability to make use of an excellent source for opportunity messaging was a big letdown for the people who tenaciously supported him through the intense campaign characterized by a barrage of negative messages against the candidate who would be the President-elect a few days before election. These supporters persevered and survived it all only to be gifted by a demeaning performance from a potentially excellent source of relevant and inspiring messages on the eve of what has been billed as a period of change for our beloved country.

There was no indication that a team helped the President-elect to prepare core messages for each occasion that he had to talk during the three-week period after election. Normally a set of messages are selected for each type of audience all geared towards achieving an objective or what is called an “ effect.” Even ad libs could be planned.

What came across during the press conference and the other media events, was a President-elect quite arrogant and insensitive to the feelings of others. His off-the-cuff remarks might draw laughs but they depicted a person who wants to hear only his own voice and expects others to obey him. I agree with close friends who are among his rabid supporters that this public image projected by previous media events was not the real self of the the President-elect.

The other positive thing is that his staff seemed to have listened well to the negative feedbacks in both the established and social media. It was announced there would be no more press conferences and that he would “metamorphosed” into a more “presidentiable” personality. That took quite an enormous amount of humility to admit there was somehow some lapses in the management of previous events.

We look forward to new announcements starting July 1 after the installation of the Duterte Administration. We hope staff work will include the use of basic Communication 101 in moving towards creating the People’s Federal Republic of the Philippines, or whatever it will be called by the new regime under what looks like a rainbow coalition.

Hope it works. We pray it works.

Send comments to: npestelos@gmail.com ###

NMP/17 June 2016/1.41 p.m.

FEDERALISM MON AMOUR

noreply@blogger.com (DevWorker) — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 07:57:00 +0000

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

One mind-boggling development during recent weeks, prior to the installation of what has been promised as a government of change, is the announced participation of the communist left headed by its leader, Jose Ma. Sison, in the incoming Duterte administration.

Neither the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), The National Democratic Front (NDF), nor the New People’s Army (NPA) has issued any statement to justify this move which effectively ranks them as part of the so-called Coalition for Change, an assortment of political parties of various shades and colors. Well, indeed, not unlike the proverbial rainbow.

From red to mixed colors seems to be an apt description for this rather unexpected transformation of the party of the proletariat to a united front of the country’s economic and political elites who have ruled the country since the first Republic under Emilio Aguinaldo.

In signing up as part of the Duterte regime the Left has taken the reformist path for which it has maligned the old Communist Party whose leaders were buried in oblivion by the Sison-led Mao Tse Tung-inspired movement starting in the late Sixties. Sison’s CPP has been invited by President-elect Duterte to name appointees for the departments of social welfare, labor, agrarian reform and environment and natural resources.

The President-elect attests the CPP has considerable experience in these sectors. To be sure, the CPP has sacrificed lives in efforts to achieve reforms in these areas.

It look like both sides, the Government and the Left, are poised to announce the happy ending to more than 30 years of conflict. The involvement of the Left in the Duterte administration will necessarily end the protracted struggle against feudalism, bureaucrat-capitalism and imperialism, which the Left the basic problems of Philippine society.

These are the key problems that any activist in the Sixties and Seventies would be ready to swear and scream against at the drop of a placard. Or die, if need be. Many actually died, most of them young, more as victims of their idealism and the massive recruitment of the Left to fight a war in which the young heroes of my generation were unprepared to wage.

Meanwhile, the nation waits with bated breath, to use a cliché, for a justification from the Sison’s camp on why it is now shifting strategy from the armed struggle what it used to refer to as the parliamentary road.

It will be quite a stretch of the imagination to believe that the CPP will be allowed to engage in the armed struggle while its sympathizers and allies are running key departments of the Government. Nothing like it in the world, but it looks like everything has become possible under the new dispensation.

Many people believe that in aligning with the new Administration, Sison’s group is actually taking the smart move to revitalize its own ranks. In recent years, the movement has had to contend with loss of prestige and credibility among the people on account of the misadventures of its military arm. It has also lost its appeal among the youth, who are preoccupied with other causes, definitely unrelated to the attainment of national democracy in the country.

It will be an unprincipled move if the left will join forces with the Duterte government simply because the President-elect was once a student of Professor Sison in San Beda. Surely there must be a more substantial reason other than this for abandoning a cause for which thousands of lives have been sacrificed and has caused untold miseries among families and local communities.

I assume that a significant number of the 16 million or so who voted for the President-elect would like also to hear from Sison and his fellow revolutionaries about their support to Federalism, one of the pillars of the Administration’s program aside from its announced policy to pay bounties to government-paid police and military for the arrest or shooting down of drug lords and pushers.

It will be good to know if the leaders of the communist Left think that feudalism, bureaucrat

capitalism and imperialism can be more effectively done away with in decentralizing political and fiscal authority to component States or subnational levels of governance. I remember a UP student leader – I think his name was Samuel Tan from Diliman, getting a lot of attention and contrary opinion by opposing decentralization on the ground that it may actually reinforce the elites in their exercise of political and economic power.

He says the decentralized system will actually favor the elites because they do not have to contend with opposition on a national scale. In his analysis, the ruling elites can actually consolidate their hold on the country’s political and economic life by federalism which weakens rather than strengthens opposition to their rule and the abuses that usually accompany the exercise of almost absolute power politically and economically.

I will be interested to find out how Mr. Sison and the national democrats view Federalism in the context of the struggle against Feudalism, Bureucrat Capitalism and Imperialism. Their shift to parliamentary struggle will confirm the popular view that at this time and age, armed revolution cannot possibly win against massive State power bolstered by alliances with either Russia or the US, as well as with emerging superpower, China.

The emergence of terrorist groups with capacity to launch military attacks to do extensive damage to what they perceive as enemy population groups and nation-states will further hamper efforts to mobilize support to national liberation and revolutionary forces. To achieve much-needed structural reforms in Third World countries, which include the Philippines, will not be top priority among the superpowers who are involved in a war of attrition against terrorist groups.

In our country,the question of the hour is: will Federalism be the way to go to effect radical changes that will result in meaningful agrarian reforms and in the process, create of more opportunities for education, employment, enterprise development and other components of equitable and sustainable human development among the less privileged sectors of society?

It is also timely to ask what type of Federalism will the Coalition for Change vote for that will fit our needs at this stage of the country’s development given basic structural problems and the challenges posed by illegal drug use, prevalence of crimes, a significant percentage of which are drug-related.

Let me now share with you some notes from Chapter 7 of the book, Driving Democracy, published by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government:

-Parliamentary republics and proportional electoral systems generate horizontal checks and balances in the core institutions of state. By contrast, federalism and decentralization lead towards vertical power-sharing among multiple layers of government.

-Contemporary debates about decentralized governance have arisen in many plural democracies, notably among the Francophone majority living in Quebec, the Basques in Spain, and the Scots in the UK.

These arguments have been particularly influential in fragile multinational states afflicted with deep-rooted civil wars where decentralization has been advocated as a potential constitutional solution aiming to reduce conflict, build peace, and protect the interests of marginalized communities.

Decentralization is understood as the devolution of power and responsibilities from the national to sub-national level.

-Federal constitutions which strengthen state’s rights and regional autonomy represent some of the most important strategies, as these safeguard some guaranteed areas of self-government for geographically-concentrated minorities.

Other common approaches include :

-devolution of powers to elected and non-elected regional and local government bodies; ----------shrinking the state through the privatization of public assets;

- private-public partnerships, and the contracting out of services to the non-profit and private sectors;

-delegation of central departmental responsibilities; and

-decision-making to local managers in field offices; and the use of traditional village councils or urban communities for consultation and planning processes.

Encouraged by international agencies, many industrialized and developing societies have been experimenting with these strategies.

-For example, the World Bank reports that in 1980, sub-national governments around the world collected on average 15% of revenues and spent 20% of expenditures. By the late-1990s, those figures had risen to 19% and 25%, respectively, and had even doubled in some regions and countries.

A comparison of trends in West European government during the last three decades noted a widespread shift from direct control and intervention by central government to more indirect control exercised primarily through regulation.

-Fiscal decentralization has expanded among most industrialized nations during the last three decades, notably with growing regional autonomy controlling taxation revenue and public expenditure in Spain and Belgium, but also in other nations such as France, Italy and Denmark.

- Proponents argue that decentralization has many potential advantages for bringing decisions closer to the community, for policy flexibility, innovation, and experimentation, and for ensuring government responsiveness to local needs.

-Nevertheless no consensus surrounds the impact of these reforms and the assumed benefits of this strategy have come under vigorous challenge. Skeptics charge that many of the theoretical claims advanced in favor of decentralized governance have not been sustained by careful empirical analysis.

- Indeed some have detected evidence of a backlash against this movement occurring in Western Europe, with some recentralization happening in the Netherlands and Sweden. Most seriously, far from maintaining stability and unity in multination states, critics argue that federalism and

decentralization strategies risk the serious dangers of rigidifying community differences, encouraging partition or even succession and thus the ultimate break-up of fragile nation-states.

-Formal constitutional structures in all nations around the world are classified as ‘unitary states’, ‘federal states’, or an intermediate category of ‘hybrid unions’. Each of these categories can be further sub-divided according to the degree of decentralized governance, where fiscal, administrative, and political powers and functions are transferred to provincial and local levels.

I find these extracts from the Harvard paper extremely interesting. I hope the think tanks from the Cabinet and the PDP-Laban Party or the Coalition for Change have taken upon themselves to study what type of Federal arrangement best suits our country given its characteristic as multi-ethnic and diverse religious faith, a land with well-defined majorities and specific minorities which will have to be taken into account in deciding the shift towards a more suitable type of Federalism and decentralization.

Indeed we may all love Federalism but we must avoid a “blind leading the blind” situation and fall into a sink-hole from which it will be difficult to claw our way back. The incoming Duterte Administration must provide leadership as it has promised to do o this vital component of its program for change.

Let us begin from determining where we are and making sure where we want to go and decide which type of Federalism can best help us in our quest for lasting peace and prosperity.. ###

NMP/10 June 2016/2.11 p.m.