Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 And Beyond
Encyclopedia
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
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 Rodolfo Guerra Villar of the Municipal Government of Rosario, Batangas
Rosario, Batangas
Rosario is a 1st class municipality in the province of Batangas, Philippines. According to the latest census, it has a population of 95,785 people in 16,288 households....

 in compliance with the principles of 1992 Earth Summit
Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 June to 14 June 1992.-Overview:...

in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

.

The plan pursued a sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

 approach to poverty reduction
Poverty reduction
Poverty is the state of human beings who are poor. That is, they have little or no material means of surviving—little or no food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, education, and other physical means of living and improving one's life....

 efforts balanced with concerns for ecological security. This required an active collaboration among the municipal and barangay
Barangay
A barangay is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward...

 government units, non-governmental and people's organizations, and the local community
Local community
A local community is a group of interacting people sharing an environment. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.- Overview...

.

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
Agenda 21
Agenda 21 is an action plan of the United Nations related to sustainable development and was an outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992...

 (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
Philippine International Convention Center
The Philippine International Convention Center is a convention center located in the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines...

 resulted in the issuance by then President Fidel V. Ramos
Fidel V. Ramos
Fidel "Eddie" Valdez Ramos , popularly known as FVR, was the 12th President of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998. During his six years in office, Ramos was widely credited and admired by many for revitalizing and renewing international confidence in the Philippine economy.Prior to his election as...

 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
Basic needs
The basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty. It attempts to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of consumption goods. The poverty line is then defined as the amount of income...

 (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
    Sangguniang Bayan
    The Sangguniang Bayan is the legislature of municipal governments in the Philippines. It passes ordinances and resolutions for the effective administration of the municipality...

     member

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

The national leadership of the DILG must have realized the HES Program required great paradigm shift
Paradigm shift
A Paradigm shift is, according to Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science...

 so that an introductory module on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 15 million copies in 38 languages since first publication, which was marked by the release of a 15th anniversary edition in 2004...

 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
      Development Plan
      A development plan is an aspect of town and country planning in the United Kingdom comprising a set of documents that set out the local authority's policies and proposals for the development and use of land in their area...

       (LDP) to respond to the identified HES issues and concerns.
    • Advocate and enforce the use of environmentally friendly
      Environmentally friendly
      Environmentally friendly are terms used to refer to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies claimed to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment....

       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
      Pollution
      Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...

      , toxic waste
      Toxic waste
      Toxic waste is waste material that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It spreads quite easily and can contaminate lakes and rivers. The term is often used interchangeably with “hazardous waste”, or discarded material that can pose a long-term risk to health or environment.Toxic waste...

       dumping and other similar practices.
    • Incorporate the objectives of:
      • Women in Development
        Women in Development
        Women in Development is an approach to development projects that emerged in the 1970s, calling for treatment of women's issues in development projects...

         (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
      Waste management
      Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...

       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
      Land use
      Land use is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. It has also been defined as "the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover...

       plans and zoning ordinances to allocate sites for communal forestry program.
    • Provide infrastructure support systems such as seedling
      Seedling
      thumb|Monocot and dicot seedlingsA seedling is a young plant sporophyte developing out of a plant embryo from a seed. Seedling development starts with germination of the seed. A typical young seedling consists of three main parts: the radicle , the hypocotyl , and the cotyledons...

       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
    Gender and Development
    The Gender and Development approach is a way of determining how best to structure development projects and programs based on analysis of gender relationships...

     (GAD)
  • Millennium Development Goals
    Millennium Development Goals
    The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...

  • 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
Lipa City
The Lipa City /Li-pâ/ is a first class city in the province of Batangas, Philippines. It is one of the three component cities of Batangas province...

 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.

See also

  • Convention on the Rights of the Child
    Convention on the Rights of the Child
    The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty setting out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children...

  • Environmental Security
    Environmental security
    Environmental security examines the threat posed by environmental events and trends to national power, as well as the impact of human conflict and international relations on the environment....

  • Human Security
    Human security
    Human security is an emerging paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenge the traditional notion of national security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be the individual rather than the state...

  • Women's Rights
    Women's rights
    Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...


External links

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