RESOURCES FOR BARANGAY DEVELOPMENT

NO HOLDS BARRED (029) August 30, 2009
By Ike Señeres

RESOURCES FOR BARANGAY DEVELOPMENT

It has been said that the barangay is the smallest unit of local governance. My wish now is for it to be the richest unit of governance. With very rich local barangay units, we could have rich cities and municipalities and further up, we could have rich provinces. All in all, that would mean a very rich country for all of us.

It has also been said that it would be very difficult to bring development to the barangay level, because the cities and municipalities do not have money to allocate to them. This would be true if we allow ourselves to be stuck in the mindset of political mendicancy, but what is best is to move on to the politics of development, where the creation of new value added is the norm and is the rule of the day, every day.

What can computers or computerization do for the development of our barangay units? To answer this question, I would like to shift a little bit to the presently very hot issue of computerizing our election process. It seems that the present thrust is focused too much on buying or leasing the machines, but we do not hear anything about building databases or training the people who would build these databases.

This is the reason why in the emerging movement of computerizing the barangay units, I am making it a priority to first train the people who would use the computers, and to orient them about the importance of building their own local databases. As a matter of fact, we are not going to simply give away computers which the traditional politicians are already doing. We are going to make it a condition that we will only give away computers to those who are already trained to use them, and who have already decided to build their own databases.

In a manner of speaking, computerization project is only a means to an end. The real purpose, which is the real end in itself, is creating new value added, so that the barangay units could develop economically, with or without the assistance of the cities and municipalities. This could only mean creating and strengthening the local means of production, starting of course with the act of stimulating it.

The old expression “Go home and plant kamote” might finally become a reality, but with a happy and positive note, instead of being a derogatory joke. Seriously speaking, sweet potato might have been a lowly crop with a poor value added a long time ago, but it has suddenly gone up the value chain with the new demand for ethanol, especially now that ethanol is now being blended with commercial gasoline.

What is the relevance of sweet potato in the subject of barangay based development? A project proponent who is aiming to put up ethanol processing plants all over the country has come up with an innovative plan to propagate the crop on a nationwide basis, in small farming scales that could easily be implemented as a project of the barangay units. As planned by the proponent, each project will be as small as 100 square meters, and will only cost about 3,000 pesos to start up.

Right now, there is an issue against Jathropa, because of complaints from some sectors that the planting of energy crops might compete with the production of food crops, a problem that could threaten our food security. This problem does not apply to sweet potato, because it is both a food crop and an energy crop.

One thing good about this project is that it has already been tested and proven. The proponent has already planted his own land measuring seven hectares, and he has already worked out the financial and economic details. Aside from that, the technology support is very much ready, coming from the Visayas State University (VSU), formerly the Visayas College of Agriculture (VISCA).

The sweet potato project is just one of the resources that are now available to support barangay based development. I have mentioned bamboo culture in an earlier column, but there are more. One good thing about the sweet potato project is that it is now open for sponsorship. Anyone could now sponsor anybody or any family so that they could have their own project to start. Perhaps overseas Filipinos could send 60 dollars to their own relatives or town mates, so that they too could become financially independent.

Watch my TV show “Bears & Bulls”, a daily coverage of the Philippine Stock Exchange. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings.

BARANGAY BASED DEVELOPMENT

NO HOLDS BARRED (027) August 21, 2009
By Ike Señeres

BARANGAY BASED DEVELOPMENT

I am completely overwhelmed by the warm response of online Filipinos to the advocacy of soliciting old computers for distribution to the 42,000 barangay units all over the country. Ms. Elsa Bayani, one of the advocacy leaders says that it is my project, but in all humility I would rather say that I am just a writer, I wrote about it, but it was the people who embraced the idea and who took it as their own.

As it is now, the advocacy is taking off on its own steam, and I am now the one trying to keep up with it. Having managed many other computerization projects before, I have made it my own responsibility to see to it that as this advocacy moves forward, there will always be a good balance between the magic troika of computerization which is the combination of manpower, infrastructure and content (MIC).

Looking back into my previous experiences, I have concluded that in the final analysis, computerization is really just the means to an end, because the real end should be modernization. When I say modernization, I mean the modernization of the means of delivering public services, and not the modernization of the hardware and software that are needed to deliver these services.

Could we possibly solicit, reformat and deliver computers to all the 42,000 barangay units nationwide? I say yes, and that is not even the problem because I know that we could deliver more than one unit to each barangay. The problem, or the challenge I should say is to build the content that would populate these computer systems, knowing already that the manpower component is already “spoken for” so to speak.

What kind of content should go into a barangay database? To answer this question, I want to share with you an idea that we discussed in my TV show today. Why not build a database of the local labor force, so that local employers would be able to recruit workers and employees from within their own local host communities? This would also be good for their bottom line, because it would save them on recruitment costs.

How about a database of local cooperatives and enterprises? This will also enable the local companies to source products and services from their own local host communities. This will be good for both the companies and the communities. The former would not just save on procurement costs; they will also help the local people with their livelihood, in turn increasing the disposable incomes of their own customers. The latter would not only have a ready market for their products and services, they would also build good relations with their corporate guests.

How about a database for monitoring and reporting the local Human Development Index (HDI)? Right now there seems to be no local data about the per capita income, literacy rate and longevity rate. Any local politician that is serious about his job should make it his objective to increase all of these measures during his term. And since the sources of the HDI data should really be barangay based, there is now an opportunity for the city or municipal officials to gather and consolidate these data at their level.

Now that I have the support of the local Linux users groups, I would like to go to the next step of organizing the working committees at the barangay level, the people who will see to it that local databases will be built for their own needs, according to their own determination of needs. As a matter of fact, I would consider it necessary for these local committees to sign Memoranda of Agreements (MOA) with the VPN advocacy group, just to have a legal framework to work on.

At this point, the priority action is to identify the pilot sites, where the volunteers have already come forward, but they must first form the local committees and sign the agreements. It is very important to do the pilots first so that we could find out the kinks, and also fix the bugs if any. After the pilot stage, the next logical step of course is to roll it out nationally.

Can you imagine what would happen if the HDI compliance data would become transparent to the local citizenry? That would mean that they could actually take an active part in governance because the local officials would now become answerable to them, since they would already know what the objective targets of governance would be. It’s about time this would happen.

Watch my TV show “Bears & Bulls”, a daily coverage of the Philippine Stock Exchange. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings.

CREATING NEW VALUE ADDED

NO HOLDS BARRED (027) August 15, 2009
By Ike Señeres

CREATING NEW VALUE ADDED

My guest anchor at the Bears and Bulls Show, Mr. Jose “Tito” Osias has recently launched the Balik Probinsiya Monthly (BPM). Tito was formerly President of Bliss Marketing Corporation (Blissmark), a subsidiary of the Human Settlements Development Corporation where I was formerly an Assistant Vice President and Group Product Manager. Perhaps for him, BPM is just a continuation of our old mission to support the creation and sustainability of livelihood at the community level.

A visionary in his own right, Tito spearheaded the creation and the implementation of the Blissmart concept, a chain of convenience stores located inside the Bliss housing sites, long before the 7-11 Stores came to our shores. As envisioned by him, Blissmart was the front end of a complete marketing system that would have supported the marketing of products coming from the livelihood projects of the housing sites.

I loved my job at Blissmark, having been the leader of a group of Product Managers recruited mostly from San Miguel Corporation, with the mission of developing and marketing products from community based livelihood projects. Much as I loved the job, Tito saw the wisdom of lending my services to support yet another mission, to provide livelihood training to these same community projects. This was the mission of the University of Life (UL). Thus, I became a Fellow of UL.

As far as I know now, there are no government agencies that are carrying on the former missions of Blissmark and UL. I recall that Blissmark was created because the government at that time saw the need for a marketing agency that would support the “housing with livelihood” strategy. It was easy enough to start livelihood projects that were initiated to enable the beneficiaries of the housing projects to pay their mortgages, but the hard part was to market the products that would have sustained the projects.

Looking back in retrospect, what we had was actually a three-in-one strategy, to train first, then stimulate production, and then to finally support the first two components with marketing. Of course, there was financing assistance in between, but even now, that is the easy part.

Moving on to the present times, the “housing with livelihood” strategy is nowhere to be seen, and so is the three-in-one strategy of “training plus manufacturing plus marketing”. The government now has housing programs that have no livelihood components in tandem. The government now also has livelihood programs here and there, but there are no marketing programs that could be seen in tandem.

The challenge then and the challenge now are just the same. The challenge is to create and sustain livelihood at the community level, so that the people in these communities could have the means of income to support their needs. In doing so, the economies of these localities would also grow, ultimately contributing the overall growth of the national economy. This is now the advocacy of Balik Probinsiya, to make the national economy grow, by starting at your own hometown, or your own locality.

Still moving on to the present times, we now have the advantage of using computers as new productivity tools to support the business of creating new value added at the community level. There are actually two aspects of this new advantage. I refer to the use of personal computers for simple office applications, and the use of industrial computers for factory grade automated processing and manufacturing purposes.

In my previous columns, I wrote about soliciting old Pentium class computers and reformatting these with new Linux operating systems. The plan is good, to computerize the operations of the local barangay units. But what is even better I think is to include the computerization of cooperatives within these barangay units, to support both their office and factory needs. In this connection, I am happy to report that we have already established contact with the local Linux users groups who will help us with this project.

I will soon be producing a new “Early Morning Show” (EMS) for the Global News Network, in addition to my “Bears and Bulls Show” (BBS). EMS will be a newsmagazine just like every other morning show, but it will have the unique difference of also reporting the good news coming from the local community level, the good news of new products coming out.

Watch my TV show “Bears & Bulls”, a daily coverage of the Philippine Stock Exchange. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings.

LOCAL COMPUTERIZATION

NO HOLDS BARRED (026) August 8, 2009
By Ike Señeres



Landslides and mudslides have again victimized many parts of the country, a sad reality that makes me wonder whether hazard mapping data is really available and accessible to our local government officials. Availability is one thing, and accessibility is another thing of course. To put this discussion in the right perspective however, I should say that computers are just tools for people to use. Even if computer systems are available and accessible, these would be of no use if the people who are not supposed to use them would not do so.

Running on their own steam, a group of volunteers are now actively looking for used computers here and abroad, with the intention of having these donated to local communities for the improvement of local governance, hoping to eventually connect these computers into a Virtual Private Network (VPN) as I have previously suggested in my column. In order to put this volunteer power into good use, I am now looking for local organizations that could support the long term sustainability of the local computerization projects.

Dr. Ernesto Gonzalez, President of the National Economic Protection Association (NEPA) has agreed to bring together a group of Linux users and other computer literate people to support the computerization of the local government of Sariaya, Quezon, including the barangay units and the cooperatives in that town. Hopefully, this will be the start of an experiment where we could actually learn lessons from the dynamics of interfacing the entry of computer infrastructure and the cooperation of local manpower.

In my actual experiences of implementing computer systems, the cooperation of manpower has always been more difficult than the installation of computer hardware and software. In the end, content will always be the “king”, but suffice it to say that without manpower, we could not easily build content. In the end, what is going to matter is to have the people who will build and own their own systems, for their own benefit. People are more important than machines, as always.

The volunteer group organized by Ms. Elsa Bayani is also inclined to help in the provision of computers to the local public schools, similar to the GILAS project of Ayala Foundation. I think that this is a very good objective, because many of our public schools are not yet computerized. One way to improve and define this idea however, is to start in the preschools operated by the Department of Social Work & Development (DSWD) where computers are more scarce compared to the grade schools and high schools.

I remember that during the time of President Bill Clinton, he set the goal of putting a computer in every American classroom. A few years back, this would have been an impossible goal for us to set in the Philippines, but with this new movement to solicit and upgrade used computers, this is now doable. More than anything else, the bigger challenge I think is to also aim for the electrification of the public schools, so that computerization could follow. As I understand it, about 40% of our public schools do not have electricity yet.

Since the local organizations will be the one to build and maintain their own computer systems, it would be best to leave it up to them which local needs they should prioritize, as upgraded computers are made available to them. For instance, they would have to choose between disaster management applications and public school applications, but that is entirely up to them. I hope however that this would not be an issue later on, as more computers arrive for them to use locally.

As I have written many times in the past, it would be good for cooperatives to be also computerized. It would be good also for cooperatives to have their own VPN so that they could connect with each other and transact with each other, but even without that, they could already use email to contact each other. What is important however is for the buyers to be able to contact them, both here and abroad.

I would like to thank Ms. Elsa Bayani and the others who volunteered to help out in this movement. Although the technical part is easy enough to figure out, I could foresee that there will be other challenges to meet, such as getting the donated units our of customs. I will work on these first.

Watch my TV show “Bears & Bulls”, a daily coverage of the Philippine Stock Exchange. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings.

CORPORATIVES

NO HOLDS BARRED (025) July 31, 2009
By Ike Señeres

CORPORATIVES

It’s not a new word, but I am fascinated by it. Simply put, a corporative is a cooperative that is run like a corporation. The basic difference between a cooperative and a corporation is the system of voting. In a cooperative, stockholders have one vote per member. In a corporation, stockholders have as many votes as their number of shares. This does not mean however that a cooperative could not be run as efficiently as a corporation.

In a way, I am sort of rediscovering the cooperative movement, and regaining my faith in it. At one time, I was Vice Chairman of the DFA Multi Purpose Cooperative, and I had the pleasant experience of increasing our revenues by expanding our businesses. Other than that, I was discouraged by the way many cooperatives have failed because of mismanagement and infighting due to internal politics.

Moving on to the present times, I have been very encouraged by the warm reaction of Ms. Elsa Bayani and Mr. Rene Abad to my suggestion that we should help in the computerization of barangay units by giving them reformatted and upgraded used computers that are solicited from personal and corporate donors here and abroad.

As I see it, the computerization of barangay enterprises is the next logical step to the computerization of the barangay units. Needless to say, these barangay enterprises will most likely be organized as cooperatives. When they are computerized, they would have a better chance of being managed like corporations, thus giving them a better chance of surviving and growing.

It has been more than eight years since the Electronic Commerce Act (ECA) was passed. The expectation then was to have daughter laws and granddaughter laws thereafter, but so far nothing has been passed. Meanwhile, e-Commerce has not really taken off in the country. More so in the cooperative sector, very few if ever have entered the online trade.

Just like in the case of cooperatives, I have recently revived my interest in e-Commerce, inspired perhaps by my new friendships with Mr. Jay Aguilar and Mr. Thomas Lee. Jay is an American born to Filipino parents. Tom is a Filipino born in the Philippines to an American mother. Jay was one of the founders of Google, while Tom on the other hand was one of the developers of the first Apple printer.

It is perhaps simply a matter of perspective, but originally I was thinking that as soon as we teach the barangay units and the barangay enterprises how to computerize, they will soon discover on their own how to “internetize” (my word invention?). My thinking changed when Mr. Hans Koch convinced me that it should be the other way around that they have to be connected to the Internet first. Hans another new friend, he is an American who has adopted the Philippines as his new home. He is one of the founders of Syndeo Media, a social networking site just like Facebook.

Putting two and two together, I now think that it would be a good goal to put both the barangay units and the barangay enterprises online, both of them having their own good reasons to do so. Of course, the barangay units have their own local government units (LGU) to depend on, but why not make them independent once and for all, with the help of technology?

Knowledge is power we always say, but nowadays it is access to knowledge that makes us more powerful. You might say that the barangay units have other needs such as health, education and livelihood, but with connectivity to the Internet, these local villages could gain the knowledge that they need to become independent in meeting their health, education and livelihood needs.

It is interesting to note that some cooperatives are already in the business of providing local services that are good for the environment. As a matter of fact, it could also be argued that any activity that would grow anything from the soil or the water is good for the environment. The only thing that is needed now is a means for the cooperatives to sell their products to the outside world, and selling online is certainly one good way.

People are more important than machines I always say. It is for this reason that I am now calling on anyone and everyone who knows anything about computerization and “internetization” (another word invention?) to contact me, so that we could all work together in empowering the local villages.

Watch my TV show “Bears & Bulls”, a daily coverage of the Philippine Stock Exchange. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm in Global News Network. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text +639293605140 for local cable listings.