BoholAnalysis

Image grabbed from Wayne S. Grazio See link here . I volunteered to conduct a city-wide research on the socio-economic impacts of COVID 19 to the city of Tagbilaran. My team at Step Up Consulting just felt that if we want to chart a better future post-pandemic, we need to base our plans, projects, and even our day-to-day decisions on data. And we have to be part of or contribute to the solution however way we can.    I have been working on data for development for six years now and I strongly advocate for evidenced-based policy or programming, especially in a context where some of our leaders base their decisions on what they hear from their friends or what they see on social media. One of the things we did, as part of the multi-methods research, was to engage in short but deep conversations with tricycle drivers – one of those severely affected by the lockdown.   For most of the people in the city, we move around using tricycles and the tricycle drivers we intera...

(image courtesy of gearpatrol.com) Last Friday, 22 March 2012, I met a Phd student from Belgium Sebastien and his wife Ally at Holy Name University where Sebastien was temporarily stationed while doing his fieldwork in the Philippines.  Sebastien studies climate change adaptation and participatory planning in the Philippines for his degree at the University of Namur (F.U.N.D. P) and he chose Bohol as the place to conduct his fieldwork though he plans to cover a few other sites in the Visayas.  I met Sebastien through email when he sent me a letter of inquiry after reading a paper I wrote and presented in the Development Studies Association conference in the United Kingdom sometime in 2008.  I explained to him the context of the research he told me his research interests. When they finally decided to come to the Philippines, they went to Bacolod first to explore possibilities of conducting the research there.  We met in Manila a few days after they arrived...

For the last half of 2012, I was desperate to find a decent bank willing to lend me money to finish my house at an interest rate that I can afford.   My wife, another Certified Public Accountant in the house besides myself, went through an options analysis including the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) and a few commercial banks that promise interest holidays, or low interest rates, or fast processing and so on and so forth.   She found out that when one borrows from HDMF at an amount beyond Php750,000, the interest rates converge with that of commercial banks so we decided to apply a housing loan from both PS Bank and Bank of Commerce .   The experience was not that pleasant.   Both banks were slow at responding to request for information and failed several times to get back to us as to the status of our applications.   PS Bank, for example, treats us as miserable clients, not worthy to be lent some money despite our positive and highly liquid cash p...

OFWs at the airport. Courtesy of antipinoy.com I sat beside a good friend of mine, a former student, and a former associate of my consulting firm Step Up Consulting Services, in one of my regular plane rides to Bohol one sunny weekend.   We talked about many things but one thing that stayed on me until now is the realisation that several of my students are already out of the country to permanently live and work elsewhere.   She herself is starting her own process of migrating and even encouraged me to do so.   She said, “I already lost hope in this country”. It’s disturbing to hear these statements from exemplary young people whom we need in order to make that big turn-around in this country. It is already even disappointing to see them leave Bohol and work elsewhere as their competencies are those that we need in several public and private entities within the province.   Our human resources are one of our greatest assets and watching Boholanos leave th...

(Many thanks Liza of boholrepublic.com for the picture) Recent debates on climate change has started to refocus measures from global and national playing fields to local spheres, with the belief that “the “local” is also an important site in governing global environmental problems” (Betsill and Burkeley 2006). The Stern Report in 2007 has clearly indicated that communities need to be empowered so that they can actively contribute in vulnerability assessment and implementation of adaptation. Further, it argues that climate change needs to be incorporated into development planning at all scales, levels, and sectors (Stern 2007). The recent experience of Jagna, Bohol, where a tornado destroyed the homes of more than a hundred families takes to the fore the issue of how prepared are we as a province, and the Philippines, as an archipelagic country, in meeting the challenges of a changing climate and the threat of natural disasters.  While Jagna has its own Disaster Risk Redu...

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 o...