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.
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.
posted by Ike Señeres at 5:54 AM
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