Houses sit on stilts in Bangas village in Panglima Tahil town off Jolo island in the Sulu Archipelago, south of the Philippines. (Photo by Leah Bugtay)JOLO ISLAND (Leah Bugtay / 22 Apr) Forty-year-old village leader Mohammad Basiri stands tall at the front of a medium-sized wooden-hulled motorized boat as he gives directions to the skipper while negotiating through the waves going to the village of Bangas in Hadji Panglima Tahilt town off Jolo island on a cloudy afternoon.
He has just come from a meeting with the officials of theDepartment of Education in Jolo to make arrangements in improving the services at the village elementary school.
On other days, he would go knocking on the doors of other government agencies or writing project proposals to various organizations or donor agencies. He even has the stamina to discuss development and other community issues until the wee hours of the morning with his constituents or with visitors to his island-barangay.
“Kailangan naming kumilos. Di pwedeng maghintay na lang kami ng tulong (We need to do something. We can’t just wait for assistance to pour into our barangay),” says Basiri, who has been leading the island-village for six years now.
He realized this a few months after he was elected. But he did not know what to do, where to start, or where to go.
In 2002, he heard that the GoP-UN Multi Donor Programme (UNMDP) Phase 3 was assisting the nearby barangay of Kabukan, a village of several islets. He then prodded the Kabukan village chieftain to introduce him to the UNMDP staff.
A couple of months after, the UNMDP assisted the community in drafting its Barangay (Village) Development Plan (BDP) through a series of pulong-pulong (barangay assembly) where constituents identified their needs and prioritize projects for the community.
“Ang BDP ang naging guide namin kung ano ang gagawin namin sa barangay (The BDP becomes the guide on what we’ll do in our community),” Basiri says.
The UNMDP also provided a series of capability-building training sessions to barangay officials and made them join provincial, regional and even national workshops on organizing, planning and transparent governance.
These training workshops bode well for Basiri’s enthusiasm to develop his community, which is composed of over 100 thatched huts on stilts dotting the aquamarine waters, 3.6 nautical miles west of Jolo.
Through these activities, he was exposed to government officials, civil society leaders, and other development programs representatives.
“Dahil sa training, nagkaroon ako ng lakas ng loob na kausapin ang mga taong sa akala ko’y di ko kayang kausapin (The training sessions give me the guts to talk to people whom I thought I couldn’t talk to),” says Basiri, whose world then was defined by the geographic boundaries of Sulu.
“Na-develop din ang aking pag-iisip dahil sa pakikipag-usap ko sa kanila at natuto ako ng mga bagong ideya (I developed critical thinking and learned new ideas from them),” he adds.
The village later declared itself as a ‘peace and development community’ (PDC) where people commit to social and economic transformation with the assistance of development partners to sustain peace and development in the area.
“Iba ang impact sa community ng tawagin kaming PDC. Maganda sya pakinggan (Calling our community as a PDC has an impact. It’s pleasing to one’s ear),” says Basiri who saw his community, for several times, serving as a refuge area for evacuees when armed conflicts erupted in mainland Sulu.
Basiri’s fervor for development coupled with the community’s support saw the realization of several priority projects identified in the BDP. A bigger barangay hall with galvanized corrugated iron sheet roof equipped with office facilities replaced their makeshift barangay hall.
A businessperson came, providing electricity to the barangay using a generator. The generator was later bought by the Barangay, which, in turn, allowed a cooperative to manage the electrification of the community.
But, the barangay’s electrification project hit a snag as people in the community are used to buying kerosene everyday for their needs and are not keen to paying a lump sum amount for the month’s consumption of energy.
“Naghahanap pa kami ng paraan upang mapagaan ang pagbayad ng mga tao sa electricity (We’re finding ways to lighten the financial burden of the people in paying their electric bills),” Basiri says.
People are paying P100 for one bulb a month, P150 for two bulbs and up to P500 for households with appliances.
Other development programs also streamed in. Among these are the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program, Enhanced and Rapid Improvement of Community Health (EnRICH) and Local Enhancement and Development (LEAD) for Health – all of USAID.
The Government’s and UN’s ACT for Peace Programme, the successor program of GoP-UNMDP3, is also assisting the community as part of its efforts to sustain peace-building and development initiatives in Southern Philippines. The Programme is being implemented by the Mindanao Economic Development Council and supported by the governments of Australia, New Zealand and Spain.
The community is also awaiting equipment that would determine whether there is a water source in the barangay from Tabang Mindanaw. The village, which is home to over 200 families of Tausugs, Badjaos, Visayans and Ilonggos, buys potable water from Jolo at P2 per gallon or between P6 and P8 per gallon during rainy season.
For the meantime, the villagers are busy building a 350-meter footbridge, which was contracted out to them by the ARMM Social Fund. The footbridge would link the stilt houses to the village center, which is built on a sandbar where other vital community infrastructure like the barangay hall and a health station provided by UNMDP3 are also found.
The barangay hired two skilled carpenters to supervise the construction while the labor was provided by the community for free.
The community decided that the amount saved from the construction project will be used to build a mosque and to buy a generator that consumes less gasoline.
“Malayo pa ang tatahakin naming para ma-develop talaga ang community namin. Pero, sa tulong ng mga partners namin, makarating din kami duon. (We still have a long way to go to fully develop our community. But with the help of development partners, we’ll get there,” says Basiri, smiling.
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