ESingaporean students constructed toilets and school furniture in one of Bohol's poorest villages---and “villas”---found in Ubay, exposing themselves to a community life totally distinct from their own. The business students of the Singapore Management University have spent for the materials for five ecological sanitation (ecosan) toilets and 20 tables and 40 chairs for the elementary school in barangay Villa Teresita in Ubay. One ecosan latrine is for the school and the remaining four toilets are for use of selected households in the said barangay in the Second District town which has a serious incidence of poverty. The student volunteers numbering 20 will also pay the local skilled carpenters who assist them in the laudable mission organized by the Mercy Relief, a Singapore-based international relief and development foundation.

The Parent-Teacher's Community Association (PTCA) has provided unskilled labor and prepared the materials paid by the Singaporean volunteers. The mission dubbed the Mercy Relief Overseas Expedition (MOVE) is coordinated by the foundation's local counterpart, the Participatory Research, Organization of Communities and Education towards Struggle for Self-Reliance (PROCESS-Bohol), Inc. The PROCESS is one of the non-government organizations (NGOs) committed to the meaningful partnership with the provincial government under Gov. Edgar Chatto and Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim for the enhancement of human condition among Boholanos. The Department of Education (DepEd) is another project partner of the Mercy Relief. It was also in Ubay where Chatto, already the governor, found a school room made of bamboo and nipa, inside which the students step on ground soil because it has no cement floor.

In the project site welcome program on Thursday, inspiring and grateful messages greeted the Singaporeans led by MOVE executive Siti Saleha Mohamed Ali and accompanied by Mercy Relief Philippine representative Laarni Salanga and PROCESS Exec. Dir. Emilia Roslinda. They were joined there by capitol executive assistant BillyTongco, representing the governor, Dr. Fely Lagunoy for DepEd-Bohol superintendent Dr. Lorna Rances, and town and barangay officials. According to Roslinda, the Ubay barangay was chosen based on the poverty database management system which shows the area having a very high incidence of poverty, which one attribute is the utter lack of facilities for sanitary human waste disposal. Ubay is not the only Second District town that “smells” for lack of toilets since the problem has likewise been a stinking concern in Bien Unido, Buenavista, Getafe, Pres. Garcia, San Miguel, Trinidad and Talibon. The problem has since long prevailed even years before Chatto assumed the governorship last July. Mercy Relief officials visited Villa Teresita and another target area, barangay San Pedro in Talibon, in January, this year, during which they met with Chatto for the first time at the Governor's Mansion and pre-arranged the May mission. The MOVE group will stay in Bohol until May 16, but one more mission of students from another Singaporean university will build more toilets and school desks in the same Ubay barangay in June.

According to the Provincial Health Office (PHO), Ubay and the seven other aforementioned Second District towns are among the 14 municipalities provincewide having high percentage of households without toilets. The two others are in The First District while three more belong to the Third District. Still for their high poverty incidence, the same eight toilet-less Second District towns were identified among the LGU beneficiaries during the Bohol launching on Friday of the Aquino administration's Sagana at Ligtas Na Tubig Sa Lahat Program. Officials of project implementing agencies Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Health and National Anti-Poverty Commission, the governor, and recipient town mayors launched the program for the “water-less.” Chatto has intensified his service strategy HEAT, the first letter of which for health and sanitation. Program implementors said the project sites, which include the towns of Inabanga, San Isidro and Dagohoy in the Second District and Catigbian and Tubigon in the First District, have very high incidence of water-borne diseases, too.(Ven rebo Arigo)