Newer paradigms for sustainable development

PUNCHLINE

Ike Señeres

For so many decades now, our education officials have been complaining that our public education system needs more classrooms, more teachers and more textbooks. This is actually a problem of resources that has caused other problems in the congestion of public schools and the decline of education quality. Without any doubt, this has also caused problems in the personal competitiveness of our graduates and the global competitiveness of our country.

Also for several decades now, our agriculture officials have been complaining that our farmers need more farm-to-market roads, more irrigation and more post-harvest facilities. According to them, these are the root problems that are causing the derivative problems of increasing poverty, low productivity and weak food security. For sure, this has also caused problems in the global competitiveness of our country.

On the subject of roads, our transport officials have also been complaining for several decades that our traffic problems are caused by the increase of vehicles that has no corresponding increase in road space, a problem that is compounded by the lack of discipline among bus drivers, according to them. This has led to some well meaning solutions such as color coding and dedicated bus lanes, among others.

As a supplement to the conventional public schools, the Department of Education (DEPED) has been implementing a separate Alternative Learning System (ALS) that is aimed mainly at out of school youth (OSY). Unlike the conventional schools, ALS does not depend on the availability of teachers and classrooms, and it does not depend too much on the supplies of textbooks. Under ALS, teachers could be supplemented by proctors who could be the parents of the students or by community volunteers and classrooms could be anywhere, even a house.

Sandiwaan Center is an ALS school that was established by Fr. Ben Beltran in Tondo, Manila. Fr. Beltran is an SVD priest who has served the longest term in Smokey Mountain. Because of its success, Sandiwaan was visited by DEPED Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro and after that, Bro. Luistro declared Sandiwaan as an ALS model for the whole country. Thereafter, he asked Fr. Beltran to establish more Sandiwaan Centers all over the Philippines, to target at least a million OSY.

There is no doubt that our farmers need more farm-to-market roads, more irrigation and more post-harvest facilities. These do not seem to be the root problems however, if we would only take a closer look at the situation. Since the issue here is farm productivity, we should look at all the other problems that would affect production. It seems that the bigger problem in this case is farm management, along with the need to utilize farm technologies that would increase productivity.

The conventional concept of a “farmer” is akin to the character of a “peasant” who tills the land with his bare hands and nothing more than simple tools. Even if I am against the idea of having large scale plantations with mono-cropping, I would still go for medium size corporate style farms with a bio-diverse product mix. It is now time I think to change the concept of a “farmer” to that of an “entrepreneur”, one who would also be the “manager” of his own production facility.

Since most of our farmers own only small farm lots and since they have very little capital, they should pool their resources together and form a cooperative that could in turn own all the common service facilities that each of them would need. For example, the cooperative could build the farm-to-market roads that could be operated as toll-ways, thus giving an additional source of income for all of them. They could also own the post harvest facilities for drying and milling, all of which are income generating activities for them.

The National Electrification Administration (NEA) and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) are not one and the same, even if their acronyms sound the same. As their corporate charters would show, the NEA is responsible for rural electricity, and the NIA is responsible for irrigation water. From the technical viewpoint however, electricity could be used to pump irrigation water, and water flows could be used to generate electricity.

As new roads are being built, it would make a lot of sense to already build along it all of the other infrastructure that are needed by the local communities. This would right away solve all the other right-of-way problems that could emerge. This could include pipes for irrigation water, drinking water, electricity, telephony, internet and telemetry, among others.

First things first, we should all understand that the term “traffic” refers to the flow of vehicles, and not to the congestion of our roads. What that means is that there is always “traffic” as long as there are vehicles on the road, regardless of whether there is congestion or not. That said, we should all understand that the slow flow of traffic is caused by the congestion of our roads. The objective therefore, is to reduce the congestion, so that the flow of traffic could go faster.

In the same way that the NEA and the NIA should work together in coordinating their electricity and irrigation goals, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) should also do the same in coordinating their anti-pollution and anti-congestion goals. Very simple logic would tell us that if only all of our anti-pollution laws would be enforced strictly, at least one third of the vehicles on the roads would be eliminated.

By now, we should learn the lesson that we could not go on complaining about our problems without looking for new solutions that would not only meet our present needs, but would also be sustainable for the sake of our future generations. We need big minds to solve our big problems, considering that this is the fate of our country that we are talking about.

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