Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 And Beyond

The Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 And Beyond Human and Ecological Security Plan was formulated by virtue of Executive Order No. 98-02 dated October 5, 1998 by then Mayor Rodolfo Guerra Villar of the Municipal Government of Rosario, Batangas in compliance with the principles of 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
The plan pursued a sustainable development approach to poverty reduction efforts balanced with concerns for ecological security. This required an active collaboration among the municipal and barangay government units, non-governmental and people's organizations, and the local community.
Human and Ecological Security
An Opportunity for Community Organizing
Global Thinking
The Philippine Government, in the response to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and to fulfill in part the commitments made to this historic meeting, formulated the Philippine Agenda 21 (PA 21), where government and key sectors of society agreed to implement an action agenda for sustainable development, known as the Agenda 21. Among the existing and ongoing initiatives related to sustainable development that served as the basis for PA 21 is the Human and Ecological Security (HES).
National Agenda
The Gathering on Human and Ecological Security (GHES) held on June 15-17, 1995 at the Philippine International Convention Center resulted in the issuance by then President Fidel V. Ramos of various directives mandating the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and local authorities to implement the agreements reached during the said conference. In the case of the Municipality of Rosario, the national implementation of Agenda 21 down to the barangay level was made part of its Human and Ecological Security Program.
Local Action
It was DILG Municipal Local Government Operations Officer (MLGOO) Pedro "Ed" Mendoza, who recommended to Mayor Rodolfo G. Villar the selection of the core group that attended the Trainors' Training on Human and Ecological Security, Social Reform Agenda/Minimum Basic Needs (MBN) Approach on November 14-17, 1995 conducted jointly by the DILG and the Provincial Government of Batangas.
Core group
The members of the master mind group who served to implement the HES Plan in the municipality of Rosario are:
*Manuel Luis Quizon - designated Sustainable Development Action Officer (SDAO) by the Municipal Mayor
*Pedro Mendoza - DILG-MLGOO
*Genciano Barbosa - Municipal Budget Officer
*Dr. Emelita Abacan - Municipal Health Officer
*Teodoro Lacerna - Sangguniang Bayan member
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
The national leadership of the DILG must have realized the HES Program required great paradigm shift so that an introductory module on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People of Stephen R. Covey was included in the training.
Office for Sustainable Development
At the municipal level, from 1992-2001, Mayor Rodolfo Guerra Villar served three consecutive terms and was succeeded by his wife, Mayor Clotilde Gozos Villar. Elected for the 2001-2004 term, she retained the designated SDAO to the newly created Office for Sustainable Development (OSD). The OSD was created through a municipal ordinance of the Sangguniang Bayan enacted under the leadership of previously Vice Mayor Felipe A. Marquez, now the incumbent Municipal Mayor serving his second term following the tenure of the Villars.
Key Result Areas
The DILG Memorandum Circular No. 97-234 dated September 19, 1997 which made further amendments to DILG Memorandum Circular No. 95-94, enumerated the specific accomplishments to be reported by the municipality and the barangays among others applicable to the Municipal and Barangay Governments of Rosario, Batangas:
*INTEGRATION OF HES INITIATIVES IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS
**Revise the Local Development Plan (LDP) to respond to the identified HES issues and concerns.
**Advocate and enforce the use of environmentally friendly technologies, such as bio-farming, composting, waste recycling, and the like.
**Prevent practices that are harmful to the environment, such as smoke-belching, industrial pollution, toxic waste dumping and other similar practices.
**Incorporate the objectives of:
***Women in Development (Republic Act No. 7192),
***Moral Recovery Program,
***Philippine Plan of Action for Children and the
***Katarungang Pambarangay
*STRUCTURAL REQUIREMENTS OF HES
**Review existing organizational structures and capabilities, and modify, as warranted, to effectively deal with human and ecological security concerns.
***Create the Office for Sustainable Development, or
***Designate a Sustainable Development Action Officer
**Strengthen the Population Management Office to monitor the balance of population, resource and environment.
*FINANCING HES
**Prepare a HES Plan, as a major component of the Local Development Plan and the Annual Investment Plans, indicating the programs, projects or activities funded from out of the 20% Development Fund.
**Allocate in the annual budget, 20% of the 20% Development Fund to finance HES undertakings as well as, the administrative costs of the Office for Sustainable Development.
*LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNIT - NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS (LGU-NGO) PARTNERSHIP FOR HES
**Ensure continuing consultations and dialogue with national government agencies (NGAs), NGOs and peoples' organization (POs) to provide avenues for discussion and formulation of a common development framework and agenda which locally-based network of NGOs/POs, LGUs and NGAs may pursue.
*MEASURES TO ENHANCE ECOLOGICAL SECURITY
**Institutionalize the Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Program.
**Develop a community-based Information-Education-Communication (IEC) program on the need to protect and sustain the environment, as well as, the importance of multi-sectoral participation on various HES concerns.
*LGU SUPPORT TO REFORESTATION PROGRAMS
**Update land use plans and zoning ordinances to allocate sites for communal forestry program.
**Provide infrastructure support systems such as seedling nurseries, and other tools and implements.
Human and Ecological Security Plan
The HES Plan formulated by the Municipality of Rosario was a sincere attempt to implement at the municipal and barangay levels various national programs and initiatives related to sustainable human development and ecological security within the framework of the Local Government Code of 1991 using the community organizing process for implementation strategy. The plan combined the various elements of the following national programs and initiatives among others:
*Philippine Agenda 21
*Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act (RA 8425)
*Minimum Basic Needs Approach to Improved Quality of Life
*Minimum Basic Needs Approach to Improved Quality of Life - Community-Based Information System (MBN-CBIS)
*Gender and Development (GAD)
*Millennium Development Goals
*Philippine Plan of Action for Children
*Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003)
*Moral Recovery Program
*Barangay Health Workers' Benefits and Incentives Act of 1995 (RA 7883)
*Special Program for Employment of Students (RA 7323)
Minimum Basic Needs (MBN) Approach
The Minimum Basic Needs (MBN) Approach is a strategy of prioritizing primary requirements to ensure that the basic needs for survival, security from physical harm, and enabling needs of the individual, family and community are attended to. The degree to which a Filipino family achieves its MBNs serves to measure its quality of life. If the family is unable to meet its minimum basic needs on a sustained basis, then the family is considered to be deprived of these basic needs and therefore is in a state of poverty. Those who are classified to be at the highest level of deprivation are targeted for priority assistance.
Congressional Initiative
Interestingly, former Senator Ralph Gonzalez Recto principally authored and sponsored during the 10th Congress while he was still a Congressman of the 4th Congressional District of Batangas the Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act (RA 8425). It provided for the institutionalized implementation of Social Reform Agenda and created the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) for this purpose among other purposes. This law is a pillar of the HES Plan implemented by the Municipality of Rosario, Batangas - a constituent municipality of then Congressman Ralph Recto. His wife, former Lipa City Mayor and now Batangas Governor Vilma Santos Recto, vigorously implemented the MBN-CBIS Program during her incumbency as City Mayor of Lipa. Her decision proved to be both wise and practical.
Key people
The mobilization of the whole municipality for human and ecological security was done one person at a time. It started with the highest local chief executive: Mayor Rodolfo "Rudy" Villar.
Three Levels
The pre-implementation phase of HES-SRA-MBN was executed in three levels. The members of the master mind group enumerated earlier were trained to be Level I Trainers to conduct the Level II Trainers' Training for the Municipal Technical Working Group (MTWG). This Level II MTWG will then in turn train the Level III implementers of the HES-SRA-MBN, which are the Punong Barangay, Sangguniang Barangay Members, Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) Chairman, Barangay Secretary and Barangay Treasurer, Chief of Barangay Tanod, the Barangay Health Workers (BHW) and other identified indigenous volunteer workers and leaders. These will form the Barangay Technical Working Groups (BTWG) in each of the 48 barangays of the municipality.
Organized Plan
Parallel to these efforts, the institutional arrangement for various stakeholders of the program were also being developed. How the different national initiatives and various legislations and mandates can fit together in a smoothly functioning whole that can be operational at the municipal and the barangay level was big challenge but not insurmountable. The plans, programs and legislations considered were discussed in the preceding section on Human and Ecological Security. What remains is to put these ideas formally into writing: an organized plan. Thus the Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 AB was conceptualized. It is the shortened version for Aksyon ng Bayan Refocusing Objectives & Strategies of Attaining Realistic Innovations Onwards 2001 And Beyond: A Program on Sustainable Human Development and Ecological Security for the Municipality of Rosario, Batangas. This organized plan was formally made operational by the Executive Order No. 98-02 dated October 5, 1998 issued by the Municipal Mayor.
Organizational Mechanisms
Excerpts from the above order entitled Approving and Directing the Implementation of the Municipal Government's Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 AB describes the composition of the operational network that matters most in the implementation of the plan.
Executive committee
The Municipal Mayor serves as the Chairman, with the Sustainable Development Action Officer (SDAO) as Vice Chairman and Lead Convener. The members include:
* Chair of the Committee on Appropriations of the Sangguniang Bayan:
* President, Liga ng mga Barangay;
* President, Community Volunteers Network of Rosario (Batangas) Inc. or COMVONET;
* Municipal Budget Officer;
* Municipal Health Officer;
* Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator;
* Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) District Supervisor;
* DILG Municipal Local Government Operations Officer;
* Department of Health Rural Health Physician.
Municipal/Barangay Technical Working Groups (MTWG/BTWGs)
The Technical Working Groups are composed of the following persons:
*Technical Action Officers (TAOs) from the:
** local government units (LGUs),
** national government agencies (NGAs),
** non-government organizations,
*Representatives from the Basic Sectors defined under the Social Reform Agenda (SRA).
Program Secretariat
This is headed by the SDAO, and includes the
* Assistant SDAO and the
* Community Volunteer Monitors (CVMs)
Barangay Development Networks (BDNs)
This is chaired by the Punong Barangay, with the following members:
* Representative from the Sangguniang Bayan,
* Barangay Delegate of the COMVONET,
* MTWG Barangay Cluster Leader or his/her
* Barangay Cluster Representative covering the particular barangay.
Purok/Sitos and Pangkats
Each barangay was divided, depending on its population or land area, into 3-7 Puroks/Sitios headed by a Barangay Kagawad/Purok Leader. Each Purok/Sitio is then organized into Pangkats consisting of an average of 10-15 Families, which are represented by their respective Heads of Families. Each Pangkat is headed by a Pangkat Leader chosen by the Pangkat Members from among themselves. The clustering of families depended on the number of houses and their proximity to each other.
Institutional Arrangement
The organizational network described above for the local HES Plan was designed to be in harmony with at least two development policy and planning bodies - the Municipal Development Council (MDC) and the Barangay Development Councils of the respective barangays. All identified programs and projects selected at the grassroots level, the neighborhood, or the Pangkats shall be endorsed to the concerned Barangay Development Council for approval, which in turn will be transmitted to the Executive Committee for comment and then forwarded to the Municipal Development Council for approval, as the case may be.
Funding
To effectively implement the AKSYON NG BAYAN ROSARIO 2001 AB, funding was sourced primarily from the 20% Development Fund and any other fund that the Municipal Mayor may authorize. This was done in close coordination with the Municipal Budget Officer and the SDAO, subject to availability of funds and the usual accounting and auditing rules and regulations.
Insights
The practical insight is that the MBN-CBIS complemented by community organizing, is an invaluable approach for the successful implementation of any anti-poverty intervention at the grassroots level - the barangay, the purok or sitio, the neighborhood - with much evidence based on experience of its implementation in Rosario, Batangas.
Furthermore, down at the local government level, it is the open-mindedness of the Local Chief Executive to change as well as his or her political will to pursue that change that significantly determines the outcome of any national initiative, with very rare exceptions.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu