Catch-up Plan for ‘A Second Poorer Mindanao’

The Philippine Business for Social Progress has quite a reputation of being able to convince the leaders of the country’s largest corporations to help the poor help themselves. It was organized in 1970 – 33 years ago, Ma. Luisa Y. Perez-Rubio, PBSP president notes in the organization’s Year 2002 Report, that in the last three decades, PBSP "has achieved long and great strides in reducing poverty."

Despite those great strides, poverty is still very much around. But Ms. Perez-Rubio takes pride in the fact that the business sector has "come to the fore," and become richer in its mindset about giving.

From 50 companies contributing more than P5-million in its first year of operation, today PBSP counts 163 member-companies, among them the biggest and most prestigious national and multinational corporations in the country. For the last six years, these member-companies contributed P243.77 million to PBSP’s projects, which are implemented with partner government and non-government organizations.

A cursory look at PBSP-supported projects shows a wide array of endeavors. Among them: providing schools with desks and armchairs; feeding 250 malnourished children; donating computers and softwares to public elementary schools; workshops/consultations to better address the youth’s situation; reforesting 146 hectares in Samar; organizing Badjao mat weavers to benefit Badjao and Moro women households; providing medical kits to rural health workers; providing credit assistance to farmers, fisherfolk and micro-enterprises, and developing water systems.

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One of PBSP’s major concerns today is Mindanao. In 1999, the organization commissioned former Agrarian Reform Secretary Ernesto Garilao to study and report on the situation in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and Special Zones of Peace and Development (SZOPAD), and the Caraga Region. His report showed that 44 percent of the population of Mindanao lives in underdeveloped provinces; of these 57 percent live below the poverty line, and only 61 percent are functionally literate.

Out of the report, a Catch-up Plan for "A Second Poorer Mindanao" was developed to mobilize talent and resources from PBSP members companies to assist government, church and other agencies in developing the region. Paul Dominguez, chairman, PBSP Mindanao Regional Committee, notes that the organization’s commitment to the island is "anchored on its founders‚ firm conviction that through the island’s hardworking and determined people Mindanao will one day be a land of fulfilled promise."

The Catch-up Plan, which falls under the Mindanao Peace and Development Program, PBSP’s 10-year imperative carefully designed to respond to the challenges of underdevelopment in Muslim Mindanao.

According to Dominguez, the peace and development program is being implemented in Basilan, Jolo, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Note, Maguindanao and North Cotabato. Here, a total of 80 project amounting to over P63 million have been approved and implemented.

Dominguez quotes social scientists‚ conclusion that without long-term literacy and health care programs, the island would remain as the country‚s perennial backwater region. As such, initiatives started by PBSP undergoing construction are school houses and literacy centers, conducting adult literacy classes, feeding, health and nutrition programs in schools, infant and child immunization programs as well as installing potable water systems.

Among projects aimed at reducing poverty incidence from 51.2 per cent to at least 44.43 per cent are a farmer‚s training program on an integrated farming system; establishing a "one stop shop" where farmers and fisherfolk can avail of technical and consulting services on pre-production, and post-production, sheep/goat production and breeding, seaweed culture and processing, crab fattening/culture, fish culture in marine and fresh waters, and home-based micro enterprise support for women.

In the area of health, PBSP projects include infant and child immunization program, establishment of rural health centers, training health workers and volunteers, providing health workers with medical kits, and making potable water accessible.

To increase functional literacy from 61 per cent to 75 per cent, PBSP’s programs help out-of-school youths acquire literary skills. Scholarships are given to indigent, bright Moslem students. Good school buildings are to be built, teachers trained, teachers‚ board reviews sponsored, and feeding and health and nutrition program in schools and literacy centers established.

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At a merienda with PBSP’s assistant executive director Eugene Caccam Jr. and unit manager Ruth G. Honculada, this columnist learned that a call is being made to corporations outside of PBSP’s member-organizations to help in implementing and sustaining the plans and programs in Mindanao.

In the annual membership meeting of the organization last year, Manuel V. Pangilinan, PBSP chair, said: "To some whose skepticism grows as the economic and security situation gets increasingly daunting, we have to believe that change is happening because, indeed, it is simply inevitable." Speaking of PBSP’s "catalytic role," he said, "The problem of poverty is so massive that we have to marshal other resources. Through our work, we have encouraged non-members to support our cause and their contribution has been very substantial."

A good friend has passed away. Arsenio (Arsing or Archit) Bascara died quietly in his sleep early Monday morning (April 21). He was 62. I remember his passionate love for plants. He spent most of his free hours tending his small front and backyard gardens, transplanting adult plants that he hang in the front porch, and laying out pebbles and stones to beautify the path leading to his ferns and orchids. He was a gentle person, beloved by surviving wife Gibette Antonio (of San Carlos City) and children Anton (an ophthalmologist practising in San Carlos City), Arsenio Jr. (popularly called Babes), and Aileen (the apple of her father’s eye), who is a recent hotel and restaurant management graduate of St. Paul’s College. Arsing, a Silliman graduate, was one of three children of civic leader Domingo Bascara and "Mommy" Crespo, the others being Dominador and Liwayway.

Arsing’s body is at the Church of the Risen Lord in UP Diliman. His remains will be cremated following the 2 o’clock worship service today.

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This year is the 25th anniversary since the founding of the Concerned Women of the Philippines. To celebrate the event, and to raise funds, the organization is undertaking a fund-raising activity in the evening of April 25. This will be a night of ballroom dancing starting at 7 o’clock at the Valle Verde I Community Center, Pasig City. Ballroom dancing lovers and concerned people are invited to what CWP officer Pearl G. Doromal calls "a night of fund and fellowship."

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My e-mail address: [email protected]