10 The Community-Based Resources Management Project (CBRMP) as a model to reduce Filipino poverty - Angelito B. Exconde^[11]

ABSTRACT

There are at least 20 million Filipinos who live in the forests and uplands. They survive on less than one dollar a day and would probably go throughout their lives malnourished and sick without seeing any doctor. With the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), international funding and aid agencies, the Philippines Government designed the so-called Community-Based Resources Management Project (CBRMP) to reduce rural poverty including environmental degradation in the countryside. The target is to halve the number of poor Filipinos after a decade or so. CBRMP priority areas include the Bicol region (Region 5), central Visayas (Region 7), eastern Visayas (Region 8) and northern Mindanao (Region 13). The initial performance of the project including some problems met is discussed. Some recommendations are given at the end of the paper.

INTRODUCTION

Current estimates have it that there are more or less 20 million poor Filipinos who live in the mountains and uplands surviving on less than one dollar a day. A greater number of Filipinos living in what is called nearshore areas are believed to be suffering from hunger and malnutrition because of poverty. Of them, it is said that they would most probably go throughout their wretched lives without using a telephone and without riding in an automobile. Worse is that they would probably die without the benefit of seeing a medical doctor, again because of poverty.

On the insistence of the World Bank (WB) and its twin, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) including the Philippines are being urged to halve the number of poor people around the world by the year 2015. As a member of the international community, our country is committed to reducing her poor population by half a decade or so from now. To this end, the WB and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have made loans available to the Philippines. The purpose of this paper is three-folds: 1) to briefly describe the so-called Community-Based Resources Management Project (CBRMP) as a model to reduce poverty and environmental degradation in the country, 2) to comment on pertinent issues arising from the project, and 3) to recommend possible solutions to make poverty reduction more workable, practical and effective.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CBRMP

According to its manual of operations (DOF 1999), the CBRMP is a community-initiated development effort primarily designed to reduce poverty and environmental degradation through locally generated natural resources management projects using an innovative financing facility called the Municipal Development Fund (MDF), which actually is a loan from the WB. The project has four components, namely 1) subloans for local government units (LGUs) projects (called subprojects in the manual of operations), 2) MDF rural window initiative and project management, 3) planning and implementation support to LGUs, and 4) environmental technology transfer and policy implementation.

The project started in 1998 and will end in June 2004. It is being coordinated by the country’s Department of Finance (DOF) and implemented by the LGUs together with the different peoples’ organizations (POs) and other non-government organizations (NGOs). CBRMP priority areas include the Bicol region (Region 5), central Visayas (Region 7), eastern Visayas (Region 8) and northern Mindanao (Region 13).

Project components

The first component stated above would provide eligible LGUs, POs and NGOs with grant and loan support based on a demand-driven basis. Projects would primarily fall into the sectors of upland agriculture/forestry, near-shore fisheries and small-scale rural infrastructure supportive of CBRMP.

The second component would provide a project management office to be called CBRMO, which would serve as a rural window of MDF for channelling funds to low-income LGUs, POs, and NGOs. The component will address issues involving MDF procedures and requirements, improvement of LGU, PO and NGO financial capacities and other matters vital to the success of the project.

The third component would provide technical assistance, training and introduction of systems that would help the local community to become more effective managers of upland watersheds and near-shore areas. This will be accomplished through the process of social preparation and community organizing leading to plan formulation, identification of priority investments and the packaging of potential projects for financing.

The fourth component would strengthen mechanisms within the involved government agencies such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) to support the implementation of locally demand-driven CBRM efforts, monitor resource trends, and provide quality technical advice and training to LGUs, POs, and NGOs in resource management of forests, uplands and near-shore areas. In this component, the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB) is actively involved in the training and technology transfer aspects of the project.

Project cycle

The project cycle has seven stages, namely 1) preparation and preimplementation phase comprising orientations and consultations with the LGUs and the communities, selection of eligible projects (see Table 1), establishment of CBRM units, community organizing, area appraisals, development planning, and capability-building programmes; 2) project proposal preparation by the communities in the different barangays, municipalities and provinces; 3) review, appraisal and approval of project proposals by the central and regional CBRM and MDF offices; 4) fund accessing through the MDF by LGUs, POs and NGOs with approved proposals; 5) detailed design and implementation of approved projects; 6) operation and maintenance of approved projects; and 7) monitoring and evaluation of project implementation for replication and expansion.

Needless to say, the different stages as enumerated above are not mutually exclusive. For instance, some of the activities like area appraisals and community capability building programmes in the first stage are done throughout the entire project life. The same is true with stage 6, which is the operation and maintenance of the project.

Table 1. List of eligible and ineligible projects

EMERGING ISSUES AND CONCERNS

The following account is taken largely from Luna and Reyes (2002) in their 2002 Annual Report regarding project performance including emerging issues and concerns about the CBRMP. In the report Luna and Reyes (2002) state:

For the year, the ERDB participated in the 8th and the 9th supervision missions, which were held on May 27-June 6, 2002 and November 25-December 9, 2002, respectively through ERDB CBRMP-ETT focal persons, namely For. Gregoio D. Reyes and Dr. Aleli M. Luna, and project staffs Fors. Arzel C. Manalili and Damaso G. Sambrana. The strategies employed in this activity are consultative meetings, conferences, site visits and planning workshops.

The areas visited during the 8th supervision mission included Barangay Luca, Balamban, Cebu; Inabanga, Bohol, particularly at Hanbongan Island; Tacloban City and Babatngon, Leyte; Borongan and General McArthur, Eastern Samar; Socorro, Surigao del Norte; Alegria, Surigao del Norte; and Kitcharao, Agusan del Sur. Issues encountered here included: (a) Survey and mapping - LGUs together with the POs cannot start their forest plantation establishment (both upland and mangrove) activities without having defined their areas for development. They have said that boundary conflicts may arise, not only during the course of plantation establishment, but more so during the harvesting period. This apprehension was hastily included as a target for the DENR immediately after its formalization in the Aide Memoire. Another issue that arose during the mission was about the (b) No Objection Letter better known as NOL. Since NOL is a prerequisite for the conduct of contracted activities, delay in its issuance had caused significant detrimental effect to project development especially at the project site level. A recommendation was made unanimously by the POs and LGUs to decentralize the issuance of NOL down to the Central and Regional CBRM offices. The suggestion was well taken by the representative from the World Bank. (c) Delay in fund releases was again brought to the attention of the team by the LGUs. They said that fund releases should always be made on time to mitigate its toll on project implementation. An example mentioned was the seed procurement activity relating to the forest plantation establishment of the POs. Since the planting activity requires a definite season, it is imperative that fund be made available on time for seedling procurement. Otherwise, delay in fund releases will eventually cause a corresponding delay in the procurement of seedlings, and consequently, delay of the plantation establishment phase the following year. The concern regarding (d) project term, which is only until 2004 is causing panic to some LGUs whose projects were approved only last year. Fast-tracking project implementation of such LGUs, which poses the issue on the quality of target accomplishments (e.g. planting low quality seedlings for the sake of accomplishing the project), bothers the management office.

On the other hand, on the 9th Joint GOP-WB Supervision Mission the team went around through Tubigon and Trinidad, Bohol; Rosario and San Francisco, Agusan del Sur; Lianga and R.T. Romualdez, Surigao del Sur; Daet Paracale, Talisay, Camarines Norte; and Naga City; for Region V, and Palompon and Ormoc, Leyte. Issues confronted were: (a) formulation of sustainability plans for projects specifically in project management, institutional arrangements of partner/support agencies, organizational mainstreaming, etc.; and, again, (b) project term extension, which is being proposed in view of the merely 20 percent accomplishment on NRM of the projects with 80 percent of the time lapsed. This extension is seen as a means of ensuring the sustainability and operationalization of the projects even after the project has ended.

Right after the site visits, the 9th Joint GOP-WB Supervision Mission Writeshop on the Formulation of the Aide Memoire with action-planning workshop, tackling problems encountered during the mission and corresponding decisions and actions proposed to solve them, was conducted. These actions were later agreed upon during a plenary session and set as target action for the following semester of project implementation. For the ERDB-CBRMP-ETT, a respective set of targets was proposed for implementation in year 2003.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendation here is to let the poor have direct control of the project. This is because according to Selener (1997) "there is a strong relation between control and benefits, i.e. the party who controls the process, especially in its initiation and during the problems definition and implementation phases, is likely to benefit most from the outcomes." It might be argued that CBRMP is community-initiated. But it is the DOF which controls it. Its manual of operations is authored by the DOF, not by the target community-beneficiary.

It must be remembered that poverty reduction is a problem concerning social change and empowerment. This is very hard to impose from the outside. For if an individual does not want to change, nobody can force him/her to. The same is true with empowerment. Nobody can force someone to be powerful if he/she does not want to. This is not to imply that our poor do not want to get rich. But community-based resources management without roads, without electricity, without access to education will not extricate them from the so-called poverty trap. The second recommendation that I would like to make therefore is for our government to construct all-weather roads in the mountains and uplands, build reputable schools and hospitals, and powerup these places with electricity.

The third recommendation is for our national government to provide the poor with abundant supply of safe water for drinking and bathing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DOF (Department of Finance). 1999. CBRMP manual of operations. Community-Based Resources Management Project, Vol. 1. Manila, Department of Finance. 91 pp.

Luna. A.M. & Reyes, G.D. 2003. Annual accomplishment report for CY 2002. Community-Based Resources Management Project-Environmental Technology Transfer Component. Manila,Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau. 95 pp.

Selener, D. 1997. Participatory action research and social change. Quito, Ecuador, Global Action Publications. 358 pp.