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Space

There is one big reason why I cannot stand living in Singapore – space. Limited, constricted, and limiting space, that is. I realized this when I stayed at a condotel in Makati where all the features of a house are squeezed to fit a 36 square meter floor area. I cannot imagine raising my son in this very limited space – no trees to climb, no grasses to keep his feet moist and dirty. I cannot probably sleep for the fear that my son might accidentally fall from the 21st floor where I live. Sometimes we fail to acknowledge the fact that in Bohol, we have so much space still (though Tagbilaran may have become crowded in recent past). A physical space to move around is important to one’s psycho, social, emotional and spiritual health. Physical space gives you a certain degree of freedom – to walk around, to run around, shout and give vent to all sorts of emotions. The movie Revolutionary Road showed Kate Winslet running to the forest to vent her anger and frustration. In the same movie, Leo

A Search for Entrepreneurship that Creates the Needed Change

I have the good fortune of attending again another United Nations conference; this time around in the historic city of Londonderry in Northern Ireland , where one of the most recent ‘successful’ peace-making processes in the modern day world is reported to occur. The conference is sponsored by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research and focused on two distinct themes invariably linked into a progression – conflict and entrepreneurship. Around 25 individuals were invited for the conference. The batch was composed of economists, psychologists, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, among others. Statistically speaking, roughly 40% are young professionals like me while the rest are experts in their different fields. Interestingly, I am one of the 3 people who has not finished or started his Phd yet. Yesterday’s (20 March 2009) keynote speech was delivered by Professor Zoltan Acs of George Mason University. Zoltan Acs was one of the pi

What is the Church's Business in the Dauis Renaissance Program?

Introduction This paper presents an analysis, in financial perspective, of the details of the agreement entered into by parties 1) The Bishop of Tagbilaran, 2) Beatriz Susanna Zobel de Ayala, 3) Dauis Renaissance Company, Inc. and signed on June 24, 2008 in Dauis, Bohol, Philippines. As the agreement is vague in some respects, figure computations were interpreted on the basis of its implications to financial statements of the “Dauis Renaissance Company”, both currently and prospectively. The paper is structured in three parts. The first section analyses the facts of the agreement and its implication on assets, equities, and net income projections. The relevant provisions of the agreement are cited side by side with the analysis. The second section represents the general independent appraisal of the author on the “Dauis Renaissance Company”, taking collectively all the facts mentioned in the first section. The annex section presents a list of important financial terms which are defined

Where Will Tagbilaran's Waste Go?

(This is an excerpt of the paper to be presented by MCanares in the upcoming United Nations University Conference in Kolkata India, 15-17 December 2008. The conference topic is "Beyond the Tipping Point: Asian Development in an Urban World. Mr. Canares' paper is titled "The Excluded Poor: How Targeting Has Left out the Poor in Peripheral Cities in the Philippines.) In 2004, the Provincial Planning and Development Office conducted a poverty monitoring exercise to determine the levels of deprivation of every local government unit in Bohol. Tagbilaran City was part of this exercise which sought to determine the poverty condition of the barangays using a set of indicators including malnutrition, mortality, crime, disability, access to water and electricity, food shortage, health insurance, income, housing, literacy, sanitary toilet, house and lot ownership, and garbage disposal systems. Interestingly, in the survey, all of the houses in the city were found to have environ

Missing Tagbilaran

It’s but normal that when you are somewhere else, you miss nothing but home. I (together with 3 others) was facilitating a workshop for DISOP Philippines yesterday in Tacloban City and I was appalled by the striking contrast between private service providers (e.g. hotels, transport companies, etc.) in Tacloban and Tagbilaran. We arrived in Tacloban via Ormoc on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon. We were billeted at the conference resort, VicMar Beach Resort at Baybay, San Jose, Tacloban City and the moment we arrived at the venue, we went to the restaurant right away to order food as we were hungry. The alfresco restaurant was located facing the beach, a stone throw across the reception desk. Three service ladies were watching TV when we got in. We sat down and they never minded us as if not a single soul arrived, though how noisy we were. It was only when I called them to ask if we could order food that they stopped their recreation time. (tsk, tsk, tsk). While waiting for the food, I went

Who's Taking the Panglao Airport Seriously?

Sometimes, people think make-believe stories are true because they are repetitively told. Okay, GMA was in Bohol sometime middle of this year because she laid (to rest?) the time capsule to signify the start of the airport construction at Panglao. Okay, she and her confreres said that the airport will be funded from the national budget because her government had loan savings equivalent to 2.2 billion, 1 billion of which will be used for the Panglao airport. Okay, Governor Aumentado boasted that the economic internal rate of return of the proposed Panglao airport is 23.6%, by far exceeding NEDA’s required 15%. But were they really serious? Since the time capsule ceremony, for whatever that was worth, nothing else moved in Panglao (thank heavens!), besides the desperate buying and selling of land, brought about by speculation and fear. Some sources said a bulldozer just paved a few meters of earth just so to make the impression that something was going on for GMA’s visit. Interestingly

Remembering the Children

In May of 2007, I participated in a global exhibit of children’s art in London . The idea of the project was to present through visual art the vision of the world’s children of the future. I represented the Philippines in the exhibit and two months before that, I went home to Bohol to conduct the art workshop with children from the Bohol Crisis Intervention Centre. The Bohol Crisis Intervention Centre, a project jointly managed by the Provincial Government of Bohol ( http://www.bohol.gov.ph/ ) and Feed the Children Philippines, Inc. ( http://feedthechildrenphils.org/ ), is a temporary shelter for abused children. Since its establishment, the centre has handled more than 300 cases already. In March 2007, 37 children were housed in the centre, located in a secure compound in the heart of Tagbilaran City, the provincial capital. The centre provides housing, food, counselling, and educational support to these children as well as coordinates their appearance in court hearings. Centre office

Independence Day

(This piece was written in 2001 on the occassion of the Independence Day celebration. It originally appeared in Panglantaw, a publication that a few souls wanted to put up and successfully printed for at least three quarters. It is amazing that after eight years, not much has changed. The lines written here, as I read them again, seemed fresh, making me think that sometimes, not much has changed, except that President Arroyo transferred the non-working holiday to a Monday.) Today is Independence Day and like most of the people in our country, I am tempted to say “What the heck if it is?” Independence Day after all is just another red day in a calendar, another breather to a lousy office schedule, or another real day-off in an often-day-off government work. Yesterday, I watched my cousin hang a flag by the window and sensed the feeling of “its-a-requirement” air in his face. Besides, what meaning has a flag to us nowadays, except for the fact that it’s something we send off to air every

What's With NGOs?

The role of non-governmental organizations in development has been subjected to numerous praise and criticisms in literature. Fisher (1997) reviews these schools of thought and identified two separate sets of views. One view regards NGOs as “apolitical tools that can be wielded to further a variety of modified development goals” while the second imposes large expectations of NGOs as “vehicles for challenges to and transformations of relationships of power”. Other theorists hints on another significant criticism of NGOs: their potential to eclipse the role of the state (Collier 2000, Putzel 2004, Kamat 2004) and succeed as agents of development at the cost of the state legitimacy (White 1999). NGOs Replacing the Government? NGOs in Bohol, despite its good intentions to supplement the efforts of the provincial government, have the potential to replace the state’s role as provider of basic services, thereby decreasing the LGUs accountability to the general public in terms of basic service

Joseph and that Unforgettable Loboc River Cruise

I was with my family on a river cruise in the famous Loboc river when our boatman and tour guide Joseph made striking remarks and critical questions that every person thinking about development, whether in local, national, or international spheres, must ponder on. Joseph, to most of us in that brief boat ride, embodied every soul that is forcefully and unjustly included in the ‘development’ process, and even those that are, without choice, excluded from its supposed benefits. “I used to walk along this riverbank to be able to go to school. I come from a barangay near the ‘busay’ (the waterfalls) that we are about to see in a short while”., Joseph told us as we were cruising the river upstream in a motorized banca (boat). “I am the first person in our village that finished high school. Maybe it’s our poverty condition that prevented most of us to go to school, or just the plain difficulty of walking along this river especially during the rainy season.”, he continued. He mentioned that m

Where Have All The Good Roads Gone?

The taxi drivers in Tagbilaran City realized one thing - that it’s better to drive passengers to Jagna than to anywhere in the city. The reason though is not about traffic, but road condition. It seems that repair and maintenance of the city’s roads have become of lesser importance than a planned costly installation of monitoring cameras in several locations within Tagbilaran. Except for the new concrete roads at CP Garcia Avenue, the city’s main street, which was part of a provincial circumferential road project, not much improvement can be observed in the city’s main thoroughfares. Gallares Street, the one that connects the pier to many of the city’s landmarks – K of C Church, Ramiro Hospital, Bohol Quality , Holy Name University , and the St. Joseph Cathedral - is in such a sorry state. J.A. Clarin also shares the same fate. If these major streets are in this condition, what can we expect of the smaller ones, and the others that still remain unpaved to these days? They say that deve