Battle fronts (Last of 2 parts)

THE mini-Marshall fund did not generate substantial fund because other would-be donors must have found out that the country was not shattered after all. The organizers instead changed the game plan and declared to the local government units to submit feasibility studies and gave grants on a first come first serve basis. General Santos City and if am not mistaken Subic got the lion share. Gensan got a big slice of the pie, not because there were geniuses that drafted an FS pronto, but the smart OIC Mayor Rosalita Nunez simply submitted an FS done by JETRO for General Santos City Development Plan during the Marcos incumbency. Part of the story was that Japan was irked because while they did the FS the projects were awarded to American contractors. But that is another story.

So what ever happened to the European aid? Some enterprising politicians and private groups got wind of the onus of financial grants to NGOs. Soon NGOs sprouted like mushrooms in Davao City. Livelihood projects like one incubated by the late Fr. Rudy Malasmas were laudable for these served the beneficiaries but several other NGOs of varied orientations soon cropped up and outlived those engaged in livelihood programs.

EU and Canada for reasons of their own would generally course their aids through a conduit which are popularly known as donor foundations (DF). The DFs do the screening of project FS from beneficiary foundations (BF) and then release the funds with very little questions or none at all. They have to liquidate the fund allocated to them for dispersal, otherwise, they lose the privilege of being the conduits.

And there lies the problem. EU donors in particular have biases for projects that fall into the categories of Environment, Human Rights, Illiteracy and Hunger to name a few.

At the start, HR issues were the most popular, the Philippines having come from the aegis of a dictatorial regime. Later illiteracy and hunger became a favorite fare along with environment.

In Davao City, some European and Australian nationals organized their own NGOs in connivance with the locals and received the grants. They had it so good they have their own private planes and live in posh subdivisions. They contrive issues that suit the dovalues nor foundations agenda and voila it’s la dolce vita. From the mendicants that they were in their native lands they suddenly enjoy the pleasures of a “Third World country’’ that they paint us with. Some of them enjoy added bonus - a Filipina wife. And what about the grants? A pittance goes to their alleged beneficiaries.

But not to be outdone are the locals. Nowadays what sell to DFs are “projects” relating to human rights which covers a vast area of funding possibilities like the all-time favorite - extra-judicial killing with added condiments like “militarization” and spiced with “killings of Lumad farmers”. Then there are lucrative projects that pertain to Environment. So lucrative Foundations have become that they have inter-locking memberships.

Am quite certain that President Duterte would not have minded these “enterprises” but he will not allow the people behind some of these BFs to have their thing at his and the government expense. When lies are peddled to donor countries like the EU somewhere along the way the spigots of poisoned aids or grants have to be closed.

At this time when the government is facing several internal and external threats President Duterte knows where and who to target. He has done with Marawi. When he declines the aids and grants from members of the EU communities that does not mean he considers them enemy. He just wants to deprive some quarters the means to fight him in another front.