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Sunday, February 08, 2004
Planting seeds to fight poverty
By Stella A. Estremera
When real empowerment works wonders
PEOPLE empowerment can work wonders. It can bring out the best in lowly men and women, inspires voluntarism, generates cost-consciousness and instills a sense of pride in them. Most of all it can lead to the solution of big community problem.
In Davao Oriental, people empowerment came through what appeared to be a very simple solution to the very complex problem of poverty -- putting "food always in the home", every home.
"I cannot imagine how we go to bed without panihapon (supper) and wake up in the morning without breakfast. When what we need are just these two hands and sundang (bolo) and tubig (water), we have plenty of water in this province," Gov. Ma. Elena T. Palma Gil said in an interview with Sun.Star Davao recently.
Actually, the solution came in two forms: Faith and a very modest allocation for each of the province's 183 barangays.
Faith is a simple, doable and viable program of the provincial government along the national effort for food security, Palma Gil said.
War vs. hunger
"In August 2000, we declaerd war against hunger and poverty," Palma Gil said.
Basically an educator, a public school principal before fate sucked her into the vortex of politics that saw her serve the First District of Davao Oriental as congresswoman for three terms or nine years and then as chief executive of the depressed province during the last two and half years, Palma Gil saw through the complex problem of poverty and identified the basic problem -- hunger and poverty in the family.
This can be attributed to her years as an educator where she sees and believes that the family is the primary unit of society whose industry can unlock the secrets to the solution of such lingering but very basic problems as hunger and malnutrition specially among children of school age.
"So, ano man ito? Bumalik tayo sa basic na sa paligid ng bahay... mayaman man o mahirap, meroon tayo lahat malunggay, may talong, kamatis, may sibuyas, yung mga gulay at mga hayop na puede nating buhayin sa ating bakuran," she said in explaining her family-centered solution to a malingering problem.
At the start of her term as governor, she said, she sat with her co-officials and advisers to analyze how the solution can be worked at.
"We first evaluated our households. We have 89,000 households in Davao Oriental and poverty is really on the doorsteps," she said.
She hurried on to say that the situation is not just in Davao Oriental but in the whole Region 11.
"In Region 11 alone, we have 200,000 poor people who live below the poverty line, meaning to say one day-one eat. And yet, the Philippines, particuarly Davao Oriental, is very rich. You can see we're so green, ang kailangan lang kay maliit na itak, gamayng sundang, even a four-year old child can have a Faith garden," Palma Gil said.
After getting the facts, the provincial goverment allocated P4,000 per barangay for all 183 barangays that were used to buy seeds and seedlings.
"Kamatis, sibuyas... na gipangdistribute sa mga pamilya sa mga purok (Tomatoes, onions... that were all distributed to all families in the purok).
From those seeds and seedlings grew the solution to hunger and poverty.
"The initial effect of this faith program is we had 13,000 malnourished children in Davao Oriental last year and we reduced it by 6,000 but still we have 7,000 malnourished," she said.
Maria Teresa L. Unson, Region 11 program coordinator of the National Nutrition Council, confirmed that there is a slight decrease in Davao Oriental's number of underweight preschoolers from calendar year 2002 to CY 2003. But the NNC 11 figures culled from Operation Timbang results also show that more work needs to be done in order to reduce malnutrition in the province. Note that the OPT figures are only for preschoolers, they do not include other children, in and out of Davao Oriental's schools, who might have benefited from the provincial government's Faith project.
Faith complaint
To ensure that everyone participates in helping province-wide poverty and hunger, the governor said, the province has set out policies to entice, if not force, people to become "Faith-compliant", starting with the people manning the provincial capitol.
"We started with our employees, especially those on job orders. I don't sign the renewal of contract if there is no certification from the barangay affairs office that that employee is Faith-compliant," she said.
She also tapped the Department of Education (DepEd) and worked out a program for all schools to likewise have gardens cared for by the students.
Gardening among students has become a well-accepted pasttime, she said, such that harvest time has become a very festive time at school.
"Ang mga bata magbahin-bahin sa gulay, ilang ipamaligya pag harvest time na nila ug ginahimo pud ni sa feeding sa mga bata (The students would divide the vegetables among themselves during harvest time and some of the produce are also used for the feeding program for these children," Palma Gil said.
"We have several school that have Faith gardens and you will be mesmerized by how they implemented this."
Aside from schools, others sectors have been tapped to implement the program too, including the religious sector.
With just about everybody now part of the program, the interest in this very effective yet very simple food security solution is kept alive by rewards put up by the government, that in turn, are designed to enhance the program.
How?
The contests have livestock as rewards to the best Faith-compliant households.
"We have already dispersed livestock amounting to over P4million as reward to our Faith-compliant households," she said.
Livestock come in the form of carabaos, cows, goats and sheeps, ducks, regular poultry chicken and kabir chicken. These are dispersed for fattening and breeding, the bigger livestock being the major prizes, and so on.
"Katong mga anak, kolektahon na pud ni, ihatag na pud as rewards (Part of the offsprings of the livestock given out for breeding are likewise collected to be given once again as rewards)," she said.
As a result of all these, she said, Faith-compliance of households province-wide has now reached 65 percent.
Aside from Faith gardens in homes and schools, she said, the province also has demo farms all over. They are also presently negotiating for the purchase of a 10-hectare lot to place their livestock, again for backyard rearing and food security.
Two-pronged
The governor takes pride in the fact that their simple solution to their niggling problem has not only solved poverty, but is likewise building character especially among their children -- Davao Oriental's future.
"Paningkamutan na ang mga bata mubalik susama niadtong panahon. Karon mga bata kay sigeng TV ug unsa pa man a diha. With Faith, at least bag-o mag-TV-TV diha, manguha sa silag sundang unya hala, kutkuta diha (We are striving to bring back the old days before our children became the TV addicts that they are now. With the Faith program, before they turn on the TV they get to tend to their garden first)," she said.
The best incentive for this being that the children get to harvest their fresh vegetables from their very own gardens.
And the benefit is not just having food regularly, it is also growing up healthy.
"Health is wealth. Bisan bright ang imong anak kung walay saktong kaon ang retention sa bata sa classroom, very short span lang gyud (Even if your child is innately intelligent, if he doesn't have the proper nutrition then his retention will be very low). So we are putting our heart and soul because we want this to be a way of life.
Palma Gil said that in her spiels to encourage households to plant in their backyards, frontyards, or even in their porches and roof eaves, she always cites the agricultural success that Israel has made itself to be.
"Israel is barren, they have no water, but they just use their hands and Israel is now very rich. So why should we be malnourished in this province?" she asked.
She then showed photos of small huts in the logpond area in Dawan where homes had hanging gardens.
Having no dry land to speak of as the Dawan residents' homes are reached by the seawaters during high tide, the residents themselves planted in used sacks, pots and cans hanged around their veranda.
"Bisan balay galutaw you can have your Faith garden. Makit-an ninyo na pwedeng ikurtina ang sitaw, pwedeng ibutang nimo sa sako, kaning mga sako, you can have pechay, kamatis, sibuyas (Even though your home is surrounded by water you can still have a Faith garden. In these photos you can see that you can make stringbeans your curtains and you can also plant pechay, tomatoes and onions in sacks). It's just a matter of doing it," she said. Palma Gil admits she herself tends a small Faith garden at home.
"We want this to become a way of life because we eat three times a day. Now, if we just eat one time a day, we don't need this faith garden," she added.
Faith is not really an original undertaking. They simply adopted this from the Mindanao Baptist Rural Livelihood Center (MBLRC) in Kinuskusan, Bansalan, Davao del Sur.
But its massive implementation provice-wide is something that has never been done yet and Davao Oriental is now reaping its benefits.
"Our centerpiece program of which I am very proud and we have put our heart and soul is our food security program, Faith," she said with full conviction.
(February 8, 2004 issue)
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