Leyte NGO brings life back to disaster-stricken communities through empowerment

By RANDY ANTONI
November 26, 2006

PALO, Leyte  –  There is no doubt about it: Eastern Visayas is one of the regions in the country most prone to disasters. This year alone, three major natural disasters struck the region: the massive landslide in Guinsaugon that killed an estimated 1,113 people and typhoons “Caloy” and “Milenyo” that affected 4,133 families. Equally devastating but less publicized were the man-made disasters – land dispute and armed conflict – that caused six massive evacuations of around 906 families from February to November this year.

Among the communities in Eastern Visayas, it is the farmers who are indubitably the most vulnerable to disasters. Poverty impedes their ability to cope with and recover from their adverse impact. According to an independent research think-tank IBON, the daily wage of farmers in the region is only P126.14, which is far below the daily income of P497.30 that a family of six living in agriculture-dependent rural areas needs to live decently. Furthermore, compounding their vulnerability is the lack of food security and poor access to government social services such as health care and economic support.

Despite the grim situation, life continues to spring in peasant communities as structures of empowerment, aimed at decreasing their vulnerability to disasters, are being set up by development-oriented organizations. Among these is the local disaster response agency – the Leyte Center for Development, Inc. (LCDE).

Reactive disaster response

The LCDE is a non-government organization assisting both natural and man-made disaster-stricken communities in Eastern Visayas. Established in 1986, the LCDE is hardly recognized in the region but it is incontestably one of the most active partners of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Regional Disaster Coordinating Committee (RDCC) in disaster response work. The agency presently holds office in Palo in Leyte.

What sets LCDE apart from other disaster response centers is that it does not follow the present disaster response system in the country which is reactive, according to Jazmin Jerusalem, LCDE Executive Director.

“The Philippines has the reputation of being the fourth most disaster-prone in the world, yet, our country’s disaster response system has remained relief-centered or more focused on emergency response. The disaster victims are treated as passive recipients of relief aid and are not encouraged to get involved in disaster management,” Jerusalem said. She pointed out that this kind of disaster response only addresses the immediate needs of the victims but not their vulnerability which is important to reduce the impact of disasters.

Jerusalem added that they have long been using an alternative approach to disaster management which seeks to decrease the level of people’s disaster vulnerability – the community-based disaster management (CBDM).

Grassroots empowerment

The CBDM is an approach that involves building and strengthening the people’s economic and organizational capacity to prepare against, cope with and recover immediately from disasters, according to Jerusalem.

“Building and strengthening this capacity entails not only having a set of programs that covers all aspects of disaster response work, including relief assistance, disaster preparedness and mitigation, and rehabilitation. It also entails the involvement and participation of the affected communities themselves,” she emphasized. She added, “This means that it is the community and not the disaster response agency who should take the lead in disaster management.”

Jerusalem said that this can be done through the formation of disaster response committees or organizations in the affected communities “whose members have a certain level of awareness on disaster and are well-trained on disaster management.”

“Promoting people’s participation, which is absent in the prevailing disaster response system, is one way of empowering them,” she pointed out.

LCDE has helped increase the economic capacities of its beneficiaries through its rehabilitation projects which include cooperative formation, installation of water pumps, seed dispersal, provision of housing materials, farm animals and implements, and financial assistance. It has also implemented disaster mitigation projects such as the propagation of disaster-resistant crops, organic farming, diversification of crops according to different planting season and others.

A good case showing how the agency’s rehabilitation program helps its beneficiaries uplift their condition was the setting up of a cooperative store in a peasant community in Baybay, Leyte. The cooperative store, which is being managed by the LCDE-formed organization, has not only supplied the community with cheaper basic goods since it started operation; it also succeeded in breaking the economic power of the usurers in the community.

Meanwhile, LCDE has already formed 73 full-blown disaster response machineries in its recipient communities. It has also conducted more than 400 trainings on disaster preparedness and management, counter-disaster planning, organizing or disaster response group formation, advocacy and campaign, resource generation, and many others.

LCDE believes that economic realities account for people’s vulnerability to disasters. Thus, poverty serves as its guide in the selection of areas for its programs. Its primary beneficiaries are remote peasant communities with highest poverty incidence and where government services are nil.

Free health care

Aside from disaster management, another important program of the LCDE is the community-based health program (CBHP), which was formally launched in 2003.

The pitiful state of health in peasant communities brought about by poverty, progressive reduction of government financial support and the continuing “brain drain” or bleeding of Filipino health and medical practitioners to other countries due to poor work conditions is what impelled the agency to include CBHP as one of its programs.

“The poor state of health of our farmers is another factor that compounds their vulnerability to disasters. Through our free health care services offered under the CBHP, we can improve their health and eventually reduce their vulnerability,” said Dr. Elvie Prejula, member of LCDE Board of Directors.

The agency also uses the community-based approach in the implementation of its health program. It does not merely deliver free health care services but also encourage people’s participation and train them to be capable of taking care of their own health needs.

“We launch health skills trainings to develop community health workers and form health committees that would ensure the sustainability of the program even after the agency pulls out from the communities,” Dr. Prejula pointed out.

Since the launching of the health program, LCDE has already produced 63 new community health workers in the far-flung farming communities of Calbiga and Abuyog. They underwent rigid trainings to equip them with skills and knowledge on herbal medicine preparation, ventusa (Chinese form of healing), acupuncture, home remedies of common ailments, health care, nutrition, health campaign management, and environmental sanitation and hygiene. The agency has also launched five medical missions that benefited about 4,500 people from 37 peasant communities in five municipalities. The medical missions provided free surgical operation, circumcision, dental and medical services as well as medicines to the recipient communities.

Aside from using the community-based approach in program implementation, LCDE also advocates the use of indigenous and traditional form of healing that is equally effective but less expensive such as the use of herbal medicines in lieu of the commercial, western medicines.

“Our peasant beneficiaries cannot afford to buy medicines produced by pharmaceutical companies because of their exorbitant prices. Introducing alternative forms of healing is our way of helping them ease their dependence on these medicines,” Dr. Prejula said. Quoting data from the July 2 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, she said that as of now, the country ranks second to Japan in having the highest medicine prices in Asia and that medicines in the country are 18 times more expensive than those sold in India or Canada.

Government responsibility

Jerusalem admitted that in terms of addressing disaster vulnerability, what the LCDE has contributed is only minuscule.

“We have only helped reduce the vulnerability of our beneficiaries to disasters through capacity-building but not eradicated one major cause of their vulnerability, which is poverty,” she said.