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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Upland program perks up sleepy village
By Allen V. Estabillo
LAKE SELOTON, Lake Sebu, South Cotabato -- When the P13.2 million steel bridge that connects several sitios (hamlets) of this lakeside village to the town proper was finally completed and opened one morning last February, the entire village had an instant celebration "for having a long time dream fulfilled".
Residents of the village, which is predominantly composed of T'boli tribal folks, came out of their houses and gathered at the bridge to celebrate.
It was, after all, not just a simple opening of a new infrastructure for it signaled the opening of a new link for the villagers to a vast range opportunities that has eluded them for many years.
The Lake Seloton Bailey Bridge was one of the 11 steel bridges opened by the provincial government last February after only about 10 months of work, a record for the province.
The construction of the 33 lineal meter bridge was made possible through the Provincial Government and the "Tulay ng Pangulo" or the President's Bridge Program for the Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD) areas, one of the three government bridge programs assisted by the United Kingdom using the Mabey and Johnson modular steel bridges.
The bridge project was just among the development initiatives that this village benefited since it was chosen more than a year ago as a pilot area for the replication of an upland development program funded by the European Union (EU).
Dubbed Upland Development Programme for Southern Mindanao (UDP), the project is supported by a grant of 18.3 million euros from the EU and is aimed to "develop and test a replicable model of sustainable management of upland resources, and to enable upland communities to address their subsistence needs and to produce marketable surpluses through sustainable market-led agricultural development".
DA and the local government units mainly implemented the project and covers 480 hamlets accounting for a total 7,000 hectares of watershed in Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, Compostela Valley, South Cotabato and Sarangani since it was first implemented in 1999.
Strategic Development for the Uplands
Melanie Arcillas, UDP-South Cotabato project officer, said UDP was formulated to meet the challenges affecting the upland areas of southern and central Mindanao where most residents mainly lack access to basic services, have a hard time making out their living, and are generally poor.
Citing the UDPs findings, she said they believe that a major cause of the underdevelopment in the uplands are the unsustainable farming methods coupled with the unwise management of the natural resources has caused the deterioration of the forests that contain valuable watersheds.
"UDP was created in response to the need for sustainable development in the uplands. UDP advocates people-centered development that will meet the economic, environmental and social needs of the upland people. UDP addresses not only unsustainable farming practices and natural resource management, but other upland concerns as well such as marketing and enterprise development, rural financial services, agricultural infrastructure support and community and institutional development and extension," Arcillas said.
True enough, the entry of UDP into the 13 upland barangays of Tampakan, Tupi and Tantangan ushered in hope and new opportunities for a better standard of living for the farmers and their families and helped rehabilitate, preserve and develop the area's upland resource base.
Replication Model
South Cotabato Governor Daisy Avance-Fuentes, the idea to replicate the UDP project in Seloton came in late 2002 when the provincial government saw the success of the then ongoing UDP component projects in the towns of Tantangan, Tampakan and Tupi towns.
"We thought then that UDP could also make things happen for T'boli tribal folks in Lake Seloton if given a chance for it to be implemented there," Fuentes said.
Fuentes said they wasted no time in proposing with the EU and the UDP management for the immediate implementation of the project in this village, which was then identified as the most impoverished areas of the province.
In a few months, the planning for the replication program started and by November 2003, the project officially began.
Barangay Lake Seloton's population is composed of 70 percent T'bolis and 30 percent migrants who were scattered in communities surrounding Lake Seloton, one of the three famed lakes of Lake Sebu town.
The barangay has 37.91 hectares of settlement areas, 92.60 hectares of protected forest; 496.78 hectares unutilized and utilized agricultural lands and 47.67 hectares of total lake area.
Bella Lechonsito, Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office chief, said they adopted a co-management system involving the UDP, local government units and various government and non-government agencies for the Seloton replication project.
"The co-management system primarily intends to involve various sectors particularly the community stakeholders. It is a multi-partnership commitment towards a sustainable resource development, a pluralist approach to managing watershed resources," she said.
A memorandum of agreement was forged among the project's primary and secondary stakeholders. The provincial government of South Cotabato equitably shares the management functions with the various stakeholders which includes: the people's organizations of Lake Sebu, Seloton barangay council, Lake Sebu municipal government, the UDP, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, National Commission for the Indigenous People, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Department of Agriculture.
A program briefer cited that the purpose of the program is to educate and mobilize upland farm families and other stakeholders to rehabilitate and protect the forest. It also aims to convey relevant information to modernize the community-beneficiaries, enhance peace-building initiatives by introducing various peace and confidence building projects and imbibe incentive system for effective participation.
The co-management program's primary components are community and institutional development and extension, resource management, sustainable agricultural development and rural finance services, marketing and enterprise development and agricultural infrastructure support.
Lechonsito said that through the co-management approach, they further built up the Seloton project with convergence initiatives that featured the best practices of various development programs of the Provincial Government.
Pilot Projects
Through the barangay Lake Seloton's development plan, the projects focused on capacity-building and institutional development, enterprise development, promotion and documentation, establishment of local extension network, diversified farming system, reforestation and tree ownership instrument, tenurial instrument, forest protection and management project, lake rehabilitation project and infrastructure development.
Among the initial projects that were completed were the repair of upland access roads to the hamlets through a food-for-work scheme, the development of 27.75 hectares of contour farms involving 37 farmers through diversified farming system, the establishment of at least five demonstration sites for the farmers' field school on organic vegetable production project and the distribution of 1,500 hills of grafted durian, 250 hills of chinese pomelo, 250 hills of lanzones and 1,700 banana suckers.
Some 240 families now have their own communal backyard gardens and the barangay now has a demonstration farm for organic banana production, rice seed production and red cob corn seed production.
Another major accomplishment of the project was the reclamation of portions of Lake Seloton that were destroyed by the destruction of its watershed over the last decade.
Almost Hopeless
Salvador Aboy, a 56-year-old tribal chieftain and hamlet leader of Togahu, said the projects that were implemented in their village over the last one and a half years transformed their lives tremendously.
Aboy said the construction of the Seloton steel bridge, which replaced a dilapidated wooden structure, and the access roads ultimately fortified the link of their hamlet and other neighboring communities to the town center and "the rest of the world."
"We were virtually isolated for many years. Most of our children were unable to go to school due to the long and dangerous trek to the village center and it was very hard for us to send our produce to the market," Aboy recalls.
For many years, Aboy says they would have to brave the strong current of the deep Lenon River just to be able to go to the village's center where most of the government's services such as the health and day care centers are based.
A wooden bridge was constructed in the area but it eventually wore down and became a hazard, he said.
The road then was also undeveloped and the only way to reach their hamlet was by riding a horse or more than an hour of hiking.
"There were times when strange diseases would hit our village and we could do nothing but see those stricken slowly die. We could not bring them to a hospital because of our area's condition and the fact that we cannot afford it. There was almost no hope for us then," Aboy says.
Some disgruntled residents eventually turned to rebellion, armed with an ideology that they could help bring some changes to their community some day by helping overthrow the government.
Transformation
But all these have now changed. The completion of the bridge has ushered in new development opportunities for the once neglected village.
A new road was carved out of a mountain trail that once serve as the only way to sitio Togahu and at least six other sitios and puroks. The road now serves regular rides of habal-habal, an improvised motorcycle that could accommodate at least five passengers.
Agriculture technicians, health workers and development workers from both government and non-government agencies were also able to make some rounds and serve even the innermost communities.
Fuentes envisions that with the Seloton replication project, upland farmers as well as the tribal communities, which are beneficiaries of the project would eventually become matured and empowered to sustain them as well as improve their standard of living.
"I would be very glad if every indigenous community in the province becomes independently sufficient, wherein they can sustain their own needs, be able to cultivate their own resources, embrace developmental projects as their own and soon provide their own source of income," Fuentes said.
Fuentes said a lot work is still needed to fully transform barangay Lake Seloton into a totally productive area: "We will deepen our intervention in the far-flung hamlets and we will reach more hamlets that are in need."
(October 3, 2005 issue)
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