You are currently browsing the tag archive for the 'Batanes' tag.
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
[Writ 04 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Good afternoon! Food be with you! (Hmmm that’s to borrow from Christian’s ‘peace’ maxim…)
You may wonder how we stakeholders of development do our coordination here in the Philippines, and I’d say coordination is practically the same everywhere. It involves ‘partnering’, an unraveling of distrust and a sincere effort to cooperate and collaborate. Partnering eventually creates strong institutions, thus catalyzing development further.
I was just a 23-year old enterprise supervisor in the defunct Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS) in 1982, when news came out that development councils will be constituted at the regional level. It used to be part of partnering mechanisms at the regional level, with the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) serving as secretariat, till it floundered and slept in the late 1970s.
When the regional development council or RDC woke up again, circa 1982, the MHS was already making waves in the development arena. This agency was eventually mandated to revive the council, in collaboration with the NEDA and all provincial governors. I remember then that the charismatic and management-savvy Governor Faustino Dy of Isabela was elected 1st chair of the revived RDC, with Area Manager (regional director) Tito Osias of MHS serving as convenor.
Down the hierarchy of power and influence the provincial development councils or PDCs were also constituted. I had the luck then of representing the MHS to begin building the PDC core in Batanes, the same core being the members of the KKK Secretariat (KKK = Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran or National Livelihood Movement, a major state funding program for enterprise) then emerging. My provincial and deputy bosses, who was almost always out of the region (their families were in Manila), mandated me to be the lead convenor for the core building of both bodies.
It was a fruitful work to begin with, the task in Batanes. State and business representatives were invited to comprise the core, down the mayor’s level. Civil society was weak here then, there were no developmental NGOs to invite here then, so it was purely a state-market synergy we had there in Basco (capital town). Within just three (3) months of consultations, our coordination outputs were simply enormous, the targets could overwhelm a single agency if it were left alone to implement them. But with many partners to achieve the goals, including modernizing the pier and acquiring a ship dedicated for Batanes alone (the islands were practically isolated from the ‘mainland’ Luzon), development goals are optimistically achievable.
Acquiring the experience I needed for my next task, Cagayan, I then moved to add inputs to a PDC core plan that was already begun then before I occupied my Tuguegarao office (capital town). Because there was a provincial manager-designate, and my post was just recently upped to deputy provincial manager, my first tasks were to travel to different towns and subtly convince the mayors and line agency partners at that level about the need for development coordination at the provincial level. That ‘massaging’ had to be done, because mayors were reportedly luke warm about the idea of a PDC.
After three (3) months on the job, my provincial manager was sadly sacked from duty, and so I had to take over as Acting Provincial Manager. Then did I do the convenor tasks at its core, with Governor Cortez role-playing PDC chair. Mr. Bagasao, provincial head of the Ministry of Local Governments (MLG), was co-convenor. There was no NEDA office at the provincial level, so the MHS-MLG-Governor’s Office served as lead implementers of the council. I myself prepared the agenda for all succeeding meetings.
It was quite tough a work there, I recall. Cagayan was quite large a territory to navigate, state officials and business groups too many to manage, but we did make headway in forming the active core. State officials could hardly see each other eye to eye at local levels, but there they were in the council, forging inter-agency linkages as semblances of ‘committee work’ of a gigantic cooperative. Sadly, the mayors were absentee, and this almost piqued me at some point to the extent that, warlord-like, I would challenge those pretentiously all-knowing absent mayors to some war games to show them I was serious in the job.
But again, like the Batanes narrative, the Cagayan experience was largely a state-market synergy, with nary a developmental NGO to invite. What we did then was to invite peasant and fisherfolk groups, which were largely enterprise-group types, but that was the best remedy then for the absence of NGOs there. (Contrast this to today’s Cagayan where dozens of developmental NGOs are in operation.) We set the rules of engagement, built interagency teams, ironed out convergences among state agencies’ plans, got inputs from the chamber of commerce and dealers’ groups, and then conceptualized new projects. Among those new projects during my watch was the industrial estate in Sta. Ana (today’s CEZA).
It was an altogether fulfilling experience for me then as a budding technocrat. I loved every bit of the job. Walls among state officials were broken down, cooperation gelled, new bold and ambitious projects were identified, existing ones were fast-tracked (irrigation, electrification, public works, enterprise finance, food sector development). It was beautiful!
Sadly, I had to leave that work, as I needed to go back to my schooling: to the University of the Philippines where I longed to take up my masters degree in sociology. I simply monitored the ensuing institutionalization efforts for the councils…till later, I heard about the constitution of municipal and barangay (village) development councils. That’s partnering at work, and mind you, it surely works if you put your heart and mind into it. It brightens up the world a bit.
Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago
[Writ 04 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
As I went around Batan Island, Batanes province’s main isle that contains the capital Basco and the domestic airport, for the 1st time in 1981, I immediately scheduled visits to the Mayors of Mahatoa, Ivana and Uyugan towns. I heard from my kins, the Basco Mayor Castillejos included, and staff that these towns still practiced consuming ‘sweet potato’ and ‘gabi roots’ as staples. Prior to that, I saw with my own eyes the huge bulbs of garlic that dwarfed the golf-sized ‘native’ varieties we had in the ‘mainland’ (Luzon). I told myself I can’t miss out on this opportunity to biz-track the root crops of Batanes.
I was then livelihood coordinator of the Ministry of Human Settlements for Northern Cagayan & Batanes in the 2nd semester of 1981, so I had the mandate to do development tasks for this paradise island. So enchanting was this province that I literally experienced heart pains whenever I left Basco back for Tuguegarao and Gonzaga in Cagayan where my official headquarters were located. Part of the enchantment was the wonderful root crops there: sweet potato (kamote roots), gabi roots, garlic, onion, and ginger.
Right away, upon arriving at Mahatao town hall, the lady mayor served my team fried sweet potatoes that were sliced so thin they would pass for some manufactured sweet potato chips. The lunch came, and there went out the boiled sweet potato, served alongside the viands. Lunch was also served with the wonder wine made from sugar called palec. No rice was served at all.
After lunch we visited farm lands planted with the root crops. I was amazed to see farms planted in the old biodiversity way rather than the nutrient-damaging monocrop system. All the root crops mentioned here co-existed in plots as small as half a hectare. The small planters than informed me that they were interested in increasing the volume of production and explored marketing some products to the ‘mainland’. They needed some fresh funds to increase the land area (via purchase), install good storage facilities, and working capital for farm inputs and marketing expenses later.
I was then motored to Ivana town after that, and lastly to Uyugan (hmmm am I right in my ordering?). Traversing these towns was via an asphalted road at the periphery of the islands, and overlooking the sea below. To your left are the stone houses of Batan, much like those of the isle of Capri in Italy. Herds of Brahman cows and carabaos could also be seen, consuming the luscious verdant pastures of the rolling hills. Perfectly idyllic! Splendid! …I heard practically the same things from the small planters there, about the need to expand production.
That is, the prototype ‘root crops project’ there would turn planters from subsistence producers to commercial producers, turn them into agro-businessmen. Seeing that the planters knew what they were aiming at and how to achieve it, save for writing the technical papers (biz plans, proposals) and processing them, I “jumped the gun” pronto and declared that for the whole of Batanes (including the other isles of Sabtang and Itbayat that was nearer Taiwan than Batan) will have root crops production as priority investments for state assistance.
As soon as I convened the new Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran Secretariat there (I was already the deputy provincial manager-designate), I put on the top agenda that root crops and indigenous crafts of the island shall be preserved, not only as part of the development program there but also because the products and crafts are part of the national heritage. Anticipating the ‘green revolution’ in Batanes then, I also put on the agenda of the core Provincial Development Council the fast-tracking of electrification and wharf expansion, and the acquisition by Batanes of its own maritime ship that will enable trade expansion by leaps and bounds.
With only a year to operate in Batanes, I did everything I can to see to it that the development principles and targets I initiated there will take off at least, sensing that I might be re-assigned (promotions for this young technocrat was dizzyingly rapid). P500,000 worth of root crops projects alone, owned by small planters, were approved in early 1982, during my watch (that’s P10 Million today). Couples of millions more worth of projects were on the pipeline. Happily, when these projects took off, the National Electrification Administration team arrived, installing at last the long awaited electrification facilities in Batan.
Finally, let this be stressed strongly, I moved for the retention of the biodiversity practices in Batan. With ‘ecology balance’ among my agency’s priority agenda, I had sufficient weapon to support biodiversity rather than shift the planters to mono-cropping that sadly sapped out soil nutrients in ‘mainland Philippines’ since their inception during the time yet of Spanish Governor General Basco (1700s).
Every time I left Basco back for Tuguegarao then, I also had on hand more than a kilogram of garlic, sometimes with onions and ginger. I was so proud of the garlic that I always brought a few samples to show to my kins and fellow state officials in the ‘mainland’. The same variety now is cultivated in many regions of the country. But Batanes’ cutting edge is fully recognized: garlic & rootcrops here were planted in the sole paradise islands of the north. Ipso facto, they are root crops that enchant too, like their mother soil.
Bro. Erle Frayne D. Argonza
[Writ 12 April 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. The author was a former young executive of the Ministry of Human Settlements for Cagayan and Batanes provinces and for Cagayan Valley. ]
Financing micro-enterprise has now come a long way in the Philippines. And there is much cause for jubilation regarding this particular feat.
I myself began my professional career in enterprise finance, as a young livelihood supervisor with the defunct Ministry of Human Settlements. Our funds sources for development financing then were from three sources: (a) Human Settlements Development Corporation or HSDC; (b) Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran or KKK (roughly, National Livelihood Movement); and, (c) BLISS Program, for those BLISS housing site-related projects. That was in the early 1980s, and we were quite awash with funds then.
With quite a huge war chest for our projects, we sat down in no time at all around the 2nd quarter of 1981 to plan the compass of operations for the newly launched program, the National Livelihood Movement. It took us around two (2) months to do planning internally, after which we took another couple of months to dialogue with other state agencies and procure their own co-operation and partnering with us regarding the project prototypes and modules.
Among those projects that we identified pronto were those simple micro-enterprises that would easily buy with the folks. Our projects though went beyond the micro-finance, as we were mandated to fund huge projects via the HSDC program. I was with the Cagayan Valley team then, and was transferred from community development to livelihood program just so that I can focus my tasks of taking off the new KKK program in my areas of jurisdiction.
I recall very well how reluctant were the folks in accessing to financing. That was a time when the Philippine economy was still 50% rural, and the psyche of the folks was strongly of the peasant-rural artisan type. They couldn’t easily identify with new ideas, even as they get suspicious over them, as the failures of previous programs (e.g. Masagana 99 for rice) have transmogrified them into shy turtles whenever enterprise financing comes. Besides, they weren’t that confident that they could run their own projects competently.
Given that rural background of the folks, our project teams prioritized food production-related concerns, as well as crafts that were more or less backward or forward linkages of food production. To name a few project modules that we developed and successfully funded via the KKK: garlic production (1-1.5 hectares); citrus orchard (5-10 hectares); goat raising (10-heads); draft carabao (1-head buffalo); onion production; bagoong production (backyard, jar-crucible). The total list of enterprises actually went beyond 100 in Cagayan and Batanes alone, where I was primarily assigned. I’m citing only the micro, individual beneficiary-operated projects here.
Because the program was new, we had to undertake a social marketing campaign by informing not only the people but also our partner agencies. The latter were particularly very helpful in our efforts at capacity-building, both for our development implementers and beneficiaries. The financial delivery system also had to be oiled well, as this involved co-partnering with state banks that acted as fund repositories and co-evaluators. It was a success as a whole, amid the gaps in the initial implementations.
That was a long time ago now. The KKK is still alive as an institution today, many other micro-finance institutions have already cropped up including NGOs, and the central bank already entered the arena for regulatory and wholesale funding purposes. The old informal micro-financing, via the 5/6 scheme now has to retool or repackage their financing, as they have been perceived as economic barnacles and have to compete with the formal institutions for beneficiary loyalty.
The great thing with micro-finance is that not only does it save the petty commodity producer from poverty. As the case of the early 80s had shown, the KKK and related programs were instrumental in cushioning the impact of global recession and the internal shock caused by Dewey Dee scandal that sent down the economy like a sinking boat.
When a strategy such as microfinance can save the boat both on the micro and macro levels, it can indeed be a very strong strategy for national salvation. And this is where our jubilation comes in.
Mabuhay! A toast to micro-finance!
Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza
[Writ 09 April 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. The author was former Acting Deputy Provincial Manager, Ministry of Human Settlements, Batanes & Northern Cagayan, in 1982.]
A BrightWorld day to you all!
In the northernmost corridor of the Philippines is located the idyllic province of Batanes, a province with its own maritime ship. Small and sparsely populated, the province used to be perennially cut off from the rest of the ‘mainland’ (Luzon island) during inclement weather.
In the early 1980s, I had the privilege of serving this province as a development planner & manager for the Ministry of Human Settlements. My unit, the Provincial Action Center of PAC Gonzaga, covered Northern Cagayan and Batanes.
Handling the newly opened livelihood first, then later expanding to other developmental concerns, I immediately immersed in hard work for the province. At that time, there was no electricity, telephone, public transport, and those state of the arts utilities that one can have today. Contrast that with today’s Batanes, where internet facilities are available as far down as all of the rural villages, and essential utilities are present.
Integrated area development was then the in thing, and being from the urban/regional planning arm of government, we agency staff had the privilege of poking our fingers in all development efforts in a province and region. We consolidated the planning outputs into master plans which, for the first time, galvanized in all areas of the country. We state personnel did the same for this small province.
To recall, commerce between the ‘mainland’ and Batanes was quite scarce. Aside from the small ‘flying coffin’ PAL planes that traversed the Manila-Basco route, there was the Philippine Navy flat-bottom ships that were used for the purpose. Only two (2) scheduled trips of navy ships occur per year, once every semester, which brought forth rice, gin, and essential grocery items from Luzon.
Idyllic and paradise-like in its mien, Batanes is pathetic economically. To begin the development efforts there, core agencies got together to plan the installation of electricity, transport facilities and vehicles, warehouse and pier improvements, and development financing for micro family enterprises.
It was really tough and challenging a task to present ideas then to the natives, the Ivatans, who were real charmers but so simple and pretty satisfied in life. During those moments of duty, being a core institution-builder then of the development councils there, I presented the audacious idea of a maritime ship for the province. This will not only improve commerce between Batanes and its mother island Luzon, it will also be a booster to tourism and related development concerns there.
As to the question of who can own the ship, I remember having proposed the idea then of Batanes forming its own corporate unit. The said corporation can then own and manage maritime facilities and ships.
It was too said that I had to leave Batanes before I would ever see the crystallization of the idea. But I was happy to find out that the young development managers of the province, including some staff of mine who later became the dads of the province (today’s governor Castillejos was my part-time community organizer for Basco), developed the idea some more… Till the ship M/V Ivatan saw the light of day.
The locals decided to institute the Batanes Development Foundation that took care of ownership of the ship. It also engaged in other key programs to fast-track development there. I was so happy that my former staff (livelihood coordinator), Ed Puno, became its first CEO. (Mr. Puno later became vice-governor-elect.)
My fellows out there can go ahead and visit this paradise province of the North. The development story of this ‘cinderella’ province is a fairly successful story worth narrating.
erleargonza
Recent Comments