Guv launches P37.6-M LIFFE project in 12 expansion towns

POOR families in 12 more Bohol towns get a crack at improved quality of life with the signing Friday of the P37.6-million Livelihood Integrated for Food and Family Enhancement (LIFFE) project Gov. Erico Aumentado launched Friday in Barangay Bugang, San Miguel town. Aumentado and the mayors of the 12 towns signed a letter of agreement (LOA) defining their respective responsibilities in the dispersal of carabaos, goats, chickens and ducks with parallel training programs. “As counterpart to the Heifer Project International [HPI]- Philippines ' funding of P17.8 million, the provincial government and the 12 municipal governments are contributing P19.7 million for a total of P37.6 million,” Aumentado said. Department of Agriculture (DA) records show that Bohol contributes 44 percent of the production of livestock in Central Visayas. “With HPI – one of the provincial government's partners in the fight against poverty – we can expect the production to boom, and with it, the plucking out of more Boholanos from the poverty threshold,” he told the mayors, farmers and workers of the HPI and the Office of the Provincial Veterinarian (OPV) headed by Dr. Stella Marie Lapiz at the Farmers' Training Center in Bugang.

This is the second phase of the partnership with HPI. The first was implemented in seven towns during the time of former Gov. Rene Relampagos. Aumentado said as a policy, he builds on the accomplishments of his predecessors. To date, Lapiz said, Phase 1 of the program called the Livelihood Enhancement Towards Sustainable Human and Environmental Paradigm for Bohol (Let's Help Bohol) has forged partnerships with 160 people's organizations (POs) with 7,499 members and distributed animals to 1,807 participating families. The animals included 1,309 carabaos, 1,337 goats and 1,494 chickens. These animals have produced offspring. Weaned and passed on to 353 families more are 199 carabaos, 784 goats and 140 chickens. But the total offspring produced are 383 carabaos which, if monetized, cost P3.83 million; 1,313 goats at P1.3 million and 823 chicken at P83,300. Let's Help Bohol and LIFFE are multi-faceted. Aside from the animals, also distributed to partner POs are 2,255 seedlings of fruit trees so far, and still counting.

To ensure sustainability, Let's Help Bohol was institutionalized by virtue of Executive Order No. 2 series of 2004. Also institutionalized is the “passing on of the gift.” Recipients which HPI prefers to call “partners” return an offspring to the PO for distribution to the next batch of families until everyone shall have received – and passed on – the gift. In the quest to improve their living standards, families may want to engage in small businesses but which proposals are not “bankable. To address this, the program has the Agricultural Facility Credit Assistance Project (AFCAP) of which 65 POs have availed of P10,000 each with no interest but rolled on. Partner-families also get trainings. To monitor and review the program in the macro, Municipal Advisory Boards in the seven original and 12 expansion towns have been created. An innovation coveted by non-Let's Help Bohol nor LIFFE towns is the PO-based Livestock Mortuary System that ensures carabaos for three years at P600 only. Lapiz said this three-year insurance system turns out to be a first in the country.

In the absence of veterinarians in remote areas, community animal health volunteers called Barangay Livestock Aides (BALA) are organized and strengthened through skills enhancement and capacity building trainings. These volunteers attend to the vaccination, castration, palpitation, delivery and other needs of the animals. Group and family enterprises are also encouraged, as well as food and herbal gardens. Meanwhile, HPI Country Director Eduardo Sabio said it is always touching to see a partner's tears flow when his family receives a gift, much more so when the family members shed happy tears as their lives improve because of the gift.

He said it is always good to work at the family level where the impact of such gifts is at its greatest. Aside from its usual funders, HPI also collects donations from Sunday school classes of four- to six-year-olds and from golden-hearted individuals in the United States to “buy” the gifts. These donors send notes together with the gifts – usually wishing the recipient family well. Sabio also asked PO members who have not received gifts yet not to despair – they will receive theirs in time. “Our system of accountability is meant to sustain the project even when we phase out. We attain this by requiring recipients to ‘pass on the gift',” he explained.

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