Rock and rolling

AT THE rustic coffee shop perched on the Mt. Kalugong rocks, the Benguet Associa tion of Tourism Officers (BATO) ended the week with an eventful meeting. Among other pressing agendas, the invigorated organization tackled the Benguet Municipalities’ participation for Adivay 2018 next month, the strengthening of the organization, and organizing activities/events that will promote Benguet’s tourism sites and culture. BATO is on the roll.

Although some quarters believe that pushing through with the Adivay celebrations will drive away the ill spirits of the recent tragedy, the general consensus dictates that Benguet should not “celebrate”. Instead, the organizers should focus on alternative activities that will allow healing and rebuilding – cleansing rituals instead of the grand canyao, outreach activities instead of parades and cultural dance presentations, music fund raisers instead of pure battle of the bands, putting up job fairs and training fairs, rather than commercial trade fairs.

The tourism officers and designates, trained in various cultural sensitivity seminars, are also not keen on holding the Adivay cultural dance presentations, among other events – as they say, it is basic human sensitivity. Most municipal agriculturists seconded; also half-hearted in putting up the traditional Municipal Agri-booths – “What is there to display? The crops were destroyed; it is hypocrisy to show agricultural bounty in a time of calamity…”

A friend from the Provincial government explained that the celebration will be a show of “resiliency” – the ability to endure the challenges of life. Perhaps he has a point. However, one cannot take away the notion that a festivity has always been a celebration of bounty. It will be a rocky situation when pursued (though we shall still support as rank and file workers). But, should we shout “Adivayyy!!!” and make a toast

WE conclude this two-part series article with a presentation of the best practices in project implementation that were undertaken by the stakeholders of the Second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resources Management Project (CHARMP2).

The CHARMP2 started in 2009. It is the third sequel of foreign-funded rural community development interventions packaged for the Cordilleras’ marginalized highlands beginning with the Highland Agricultural Development Project (HADP) in 1987-1994 and later followed by the Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resources Management (CHARM) Project from 1998-2004.

The CHARMP2 was implemented in remote, almost unknown and poverty-stricken villages in 36 municipalities of the Cordillera championing participatory, gender, indigenous, inter-agency, and other community resources management strategies that would accelerate infrastructure development, promote good governance and social development, and the conservation, protection, and rehabilitation of the region’s natural resources and quality environment.

The Project was completed last December 30, 2019. Now on its two-year scale-up phase, the Project seeks to upscale best practices evolved in project implementation in 18 new barangays of the Cordillera.

Before looking at these best practices, it would be well to also note that the CHARMP2 is by itself, a unique, holistic, and innovative rural community development intervention quite unlike the others that we have seen implemented in the Cordillera addressing development concerns involving single commodities like citrus or potato, if not “one-time big-time” rural infrastructure projects like multi-million farm-to-market roads or postharvest facilities.

The issues with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio, also known as Pope Francis, began his papacy were migration and jobs. These are issues that the world’s poor care about, issues with which most Cordillerans also struggle with on a daily basis, its pains recently highlighted during the Itogon landslide tragedy where most of those buried, dead, and missing are immigrants from nearby provinces searching for better income and quality of life.

Many a poor migrant know this by heart, “where there is no work, there is no dignity.” Pope Francis understood what it took to leave one land for another, “that fortitude, as well as the great pain that comes from being uprooted,” as he put it when he shared the background of his family in South America to those who would listen.

Migration at its worst tears families apart and leaves its victims suffer not only financial crises, family break-ups, and sadness of forced forgetfulness of a person’s history and belonging to a caring community.

It is for these same reasons, that the CHARMP2 was conceptualized, to improve the quality of life in the region’s marginalized highland communities, by improving local livelihoods, increasing the income of local folks, and addressing a host of community development priorities identified by the beneficiaries themselves during community consultations and participatory planning exercises assisted by the Project’s operatives from the Department of Agriculture and its key implementing partners to include the local government units(LGUs) and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

In the Project’s coverage areas, the identified priority projects by the beneficiaries are the following: Implementation of agro-forestry watershed management systems to improve watersheds in slope areas; Implementation of agribusiness and livelihood development through group enterprises; and, Improvement of rural community infrastructure essential for the promotion of agricultural production and rural-based livelihoods to include farm-to-market-access roads, communal irrigation