Something for the Sacada Workers

I just finished drafting a project proposal for the Baleten-on sacada workers and their dependents. Somebody from DOLE tipped me of the availability of funds intended for these marginalized contract workers. Somehow, they are the marginalized among the marginalized and are the ones less understood by the society, having forced by circumstance to always move in and out of the community in search for livelihood. I heard in several instance that as contractual unskilled sugarcane workers, they are prone to abuses by either the contractor and the employer who often times take advantage of their vulnerability, ignorance and vices. They left their respective family a poor household and returned to it after four months to see it poorer than before.

I myself don't understand them. To me they are strangers whose stories I'm wanting to hear. Fortunately, Fr. Niall O'Brien serves as their voice amplifiers when he devoted a whole chapter about them in his book, Revolution from the Heart (1987). At least, I have some ideas about them when I interacted with them in the next few months should the proposal get the nod of the DOLE people.

Tomorrow, I shall scale the heights to Cortes to meet some of them for a briefing. Wish the angels are with me on this endeavor.

Of Antuyamis, Daeawidaw and Tagwatihot

Sunbirds are one of the commonest birds in rural Balete. Every garden serves as their favorite rendezvous and hunting ground for nectars and spiders. In my place, I've counted six pairs jockeying among the twigs and branches within the guava groves. The daring and the bold would even perched on our windowsills spying on cobs and house spiders squatting on our ceiling.

Popularly known as Antuyamis, I lately discovered that those Olive-backed sunbirds have cousins in the mountainous region of Balete. While camping out atop the Agtawagon sometime in late 90's with Roy (the Municipal Treasurer) and Dodo (our friend from that place), a copper-throated blue feathered sunbird introduced itself as it chased something that sought refuge on the perimeter of our camp. Compared to the Antuyamis, that one which the taga-ilaya (the mountain people) called, "Daeawidaw"was more of an acrobat and a little bit more shy. Even then, it lingered for a while in a safe distance displaying its shining magnificence before it disappeared into the thickets.

Then, in my latest visit to Benitinan last year, along the slippery path I was trying to navigate, I heard an almost familiar high pitch tweets (although shriller than that of the olive-back sunbird)among the Maganhop canopy. As I search the source, I saw a yellowish red-chested handsome sunbird diving into an Abaca plant grown underneath the shade of the Maganhop tree. Seeing it for the first time,I was excited to frame it in my camera. But perhaps I was slow or the bird was too agile and shy that I failed to catch it in the office-issued 5.1 mega-pixel Sony cybershot digital camera. Later in my interaction with the Benitinanons, I learned that what I saw was a Tagwatihot.

4Ps in Balete

The entry on page 40 of the Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul is a rhetorical question which reminds me of Pet Garmino's asking why the poor people of Oquendo and Guanko were not included in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. 4Ps is part of the hunger mitigation program of the current administration of which Balete has been included following reports from the NEDA that it ranks third in the Province of Aklan to have high poverty incidence.

Early last year, a low profile survey was conducted in the 10 constituent barangays of Balete purposely to validate the NEDA report. The Department of Social Welfare and Development spearheaded the supposedly house-to-house survey. While the project was being planned out, a good number of residents in Sitio Benitinan had migrated into the neighboring town of Libacao due to reports that the local government there was generous in providing the poor households with monthly stipend of Php. 5,000. When the survey pushed through--and in such a inconspicuous manner at that--and the results were forwarded to the concerned agency for analysis, the local officials were still in a blind. By December of 2009, the Local Chief Executive was furnished with a proxy means test result of the survey conducted where it shows that of the 4,879 household Balete has, there were only 857 households that were considered potential beneficiaries of the 4Ps. These potential target beneficiaries came from the barrios of Arcangel, Aranas, Calizo and Fulgencio.

Mayor Noemi Cordero, in a letter addressed to then DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral expressed her disagreement with the result considering that the other 6 barangays have such high poverty incidence as well. She parleyed for a revision of the listing of beneficiaries, sadly to no avail. The concerned agency had made its decision final.

Of the 857 potential household beneficiaries 10 where dropped from the list during the validation conducted on January of 2010. They were dropped from the list as they failed to attend the validation activity. The beneficiaries were supposed to receive a monthly subsidy of Php. 1,800 beginning November 2008 however, until now, their ATM are will inactive. Hopefully, these indigent families will receive their fill by June in time for the opening of classes. Also, they are to receive rice allocation under the rice assistance program being conceived by the same agency through the Philippine National Red Cross.

Life in Retrospect

I found myself reading my old journal. I reasoned out to myself (defensively) that I'm retracing the past that I may discern the present as I move forward into the morrow.

Concerning the Special Program for the Employment of Students in Balete

Today is the last day of the Special Program for the Employment of Students here in Balete. The local government unit has committed and employed 10 students coming from the ten constituent barangays (villages) of the municipality. Since last year at this time of the year, the LGU implemented the program with the Department of Labor and Employment to enable poor but deserving students generate extra income during the long summer break for them to pay their tuition fees for the following school year.

The SPES activities for the past two years delve on skills mapping with the end view of generating relevant databank concerning the Baleten-on labor force. The LGU's databank on its labor force is insufficient for it to establish a labor market information system. Such system would be useful not only in setting up appropriate policies on local labor and in addressing the high underemployment rate and poverty incidence but also for jobseekers and investors and other stakeholders.

So the government is investing on these students as future leaders and at the same time immersing them in the realities of labor issues and concerns of today. For 22 days since April 19, they were sent back to their respective villages to gather labor related information concerning their people and at the same time training them to analyze the data they have gathered during weekly huddles.

In a way, the program is an attempt to reorient the youth's values away from the patronage and "solicitation" mentality which are prevalent since the Marcos time.

At the most, the LGU could only pray that it has served as catalyst of change in a society where the youth although regarded as the hope of fatherland are constantly rebelling for something chic yet rootless, popular yet ephemeral.

On Jal-o Agrarian Reform Community and the Jal-o River

The late catholic priest, Vio Dandoy, a native of Oquendo, Balete, was collaborating with the Department of Agrarian Reform and other stakeholders sometime in 2003 for the establishment of an agrarian reform community in the contiguous upland barangays (villages) of Oquendo, Guanko, Morales and Cortes. He started organizing the communities and even invested much of his personal money to realize his dream for his people. The community was zealous and hopeful as they started communal orchards, raised livestock and organized bible study groups. The government people were attracted in the way people volunteered and they frequented their "ocular inspections". Officials both from the National and Local government scaled the heights together with the local ordinary of the Diocese of Kalibo to inaugurate what ought to be an exemplary project of empowering the landless.

The inauguration was a big bang.

.........

The inauguration was a big bang. That's it. Just a big bang heard from all over. After the bang, which was like a balloon popping, nothing more is heard of it.

The priest died, bitter of having seen his dream came to naught. The people, still landless, much like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walked downcast to realize that the dream they shared was but castle in the air. The bishop and his courtiers are long gone in their quest of "Vobiscum ambulare." The government people went about with their usual business and laid on the table a voluminous documents of the ARC project that never materialize for "lack of funds". Incidentally, the ARC was named Jal-o ARC as the participating communities are cut through by the Jal-o River.

I recalled these incidents as I happen to have a glimpse of the documents in the archives, amused that the documenter managed to incorporate on its first page my write ups about the Jal-o River without my prior consent.

Flow, Jal-o, Flow

Even if the rain has stopped falling

and the scorching heat of the sun wilted

the Katueanga(Hibiscus),

I still hear your steady flow

as if an eternal song sung

by some elfin lady

among the Balete trees.

I Don't Think My Mind is Without Ink Today

My mind is without ink these days. My subconscious is instead portraying new archetypes. Colorful ones and bordering to the absurd.

My mind is without ink these days. My conscious mind dictates that I write down all those events happening inside. Atess was suggesting though that I paint again when she told me that she miss my artworks. And I feel appreciated.

Yet my mind is without ink these days. Atess invited me to her place to see her for the last time. She said she and her entire family will be leaving for New Zealand in June. She said that she feel funny to have kept all my letters after all these years. Well, that was almost 20 years ago. The sad thing is I have told her that I am keeping hers too. I set them to fire some 16 years ago--including her photographs which were my most precious memorabilia of her. I was angry and confused at that time. I hope she'll understand.

Really, my mind is without ink these days. My mind is filled with regrets. It wants to go back in time to correct all those stupidity and indecisiveness. But I can discern that Atess is now happy to have settled down and raised her family in the way she'd dreamed of. I cannot pray for more. My heart's every good wish for her is coming true. That's my consolation.

Now, I don't think that my mind is without ink today.