BoholAnalysis

For the last three to five years we were made to believe that Bohol indeed leaped out of the poorest provinces. But a new presentation of NSCB , posted in their website in Feb 2011, showed that Bohol, along with Maguindanao, Masbate, Agusan del Sur, Zambo del Norte, Surigao del Norte, is consistently included in the bottom cluster of provinces in 2003, 2006, and 2009. How come this does not make it to the headlines? When I posted the above opening statement in Facebook and when I brought it up with my friends, I got different reactions, from the lyrical to the absurd.  Atty. John Titus Vistal of the Provincial Planning and Development Office called me up to say that this was a result of methods revision on the part of NSCB. PRMF Provincial Director Rosalinda Paredes emailed me and other interested parties regarding the need to bring the discussion up to the table again. One friend however, told me that this is good for Bohol as this becomes a justification for project proposals on an

Two friends of mine sipped coffee at Bo’s after what to them was a disappointing forum on the RH bill sponsored by the local Catholic Church. They were amazed by the lack of information, the drought of reason, and the argumentum ad misericordiam employed by those who said that the RH bill should be junked. The lady, mother of two, asked, “Why should an intellectual forum on a bill be reduced to an attack to our conscience? Why does the church have to repeat all over and over again that to kill is bad?” His companion replied, “I do not really see the point. I have not seen a provision there that says that the bill can be made responsible for deaths of unborn children. I do not really know what they are objecting about.” “Impress me, convince me.” These were the words that echoed in my mind when I heard the conversation. I heard it first in a reality show looking for fresh new talents, shouted by one of the three judges at a contestant doing an interpretation of Stevie Wonder’s ‘

I came across a very powerful article by Jeffrey Sachs in The Broker Magazine issue for February 2010. Though I am not his huge fan even when he wrote “The End of Poverty” five years back, I got excited by how bluntly he made a critic on government and the development enterprise regarding the climate change issue after Copenhagen. He wrote, in his final remarks on his essay “Rethinking Macroeconomics” regarding that knowledge deficit in the policy-making halls of governments. I love the lines. This is the reason why I am reproducing it here. “Finally, another fundamental problem of governance is the lack of interface between politicians and ‘knowledge communities’, that is, the communities of expertise in critical areas such as energy, food production, disease control, poverty alleviation, and so on. We have not solved the problem of the proper integration of scientific and technological knowledge in public policy making. The US Congress is nearly scientifically illiterate. This is v

(This is an excerpt of the paper "Its Just a Buzzword from Above...." which Michael Canares presented in the most recent conference of the Development Studies Association of the United Kingdom, held at the University of Ulster, Coleraine Campus, Northern Ireland on September 2-5, 2009) The review of local development plans of 60% of the municipalities in Bohol, Philippines revealed that climate change concerns are not incorporated into the plans. What the plans contain are environmental projects and policies that are not necessarily related to climate change issues, or drafted not with climate change mitigation and adaptation in mind. There has never been a climate change vulnerability assessment conducted, nor discussions related to mitigation and adaptation policies. Thus, it would seem that climate change as a global problem is never a local concern, precisely because of the reason that there are significant knowledge gaps that constrained problem recognition and solution.

I can still remember the 1993 American film Demolition Man where Sylvester Stallone faced off Wesley Snipes in a science-fiction-war-thriller movie set in 2032. The forces between good and evil, between light and darkness, is captured vividly in the film while it puts forward the idea that one can coexist with the other even in the mind of a single person. In movies of this plot, the protagonist is always the one at the fold of the law, the one that is just, the one who asserts its rightful power against the other. But as I write this piece, I no longer refer to that police officer played by Stallone in the movie. I refer to one person who has, after all these years, shown what political will is all about. I must admit I am never a fan of this man. I was very critical of his administration when he ‘ruled’ the island of Panglao when I was still studying university. But he is the modern-day Demolition Man. His name is Benedicto ‘Dodong’ Alcala, three-term mayor in the municipality of Pan

(as you read this piece, bear in mind how the arguments can be located in the political landscape of Bohol) Introduction Manny Pacquiao’s victory over Hatton in their recent fight gained several descriptions attached to our political development as a nation. National dailies said that his victory once again “unified the nation” or that it showed that “the Philippines still has hope”. Even the Bohol Chronicle said that “we have not had this high feeling since EDSA 1986”, and that “Boholanos back pacman’s politics”. The Philippine fanaticism in boxing as a sport dates even beyond the time that Gabriel “Flash” Ilorde was proclaimed by the WBC as the “greatest world junior lightweight champion in WBC history” in 1972. Records show that the Philippines had its first international champion in 1925, at a time at which the country was experiencing its painful journey towards autonomy from the United States regime. Coincidentally, it was also the time when local politicians seemed like boxing c

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

(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