Bahala na: Also, We Have a Problem

From my last blog post until September 20, the only thing on my mind, from dawn to dusk, was the completion of the guardhouse at the Tan-Luc MPA. Lots of wonderful, exciting events and activities happened in the meantime. There were birthday parties, fiestas and barangay discos, SCUBA diving trips with other volunteers, a memorable getaway to Gigantes Island, a 3-day biophysical assessment training for the monitoring team of the MPA, and I was invited to serve for two weeks as the resource volunteer for the incoming batch of CRM volunteers at their orientation conference. Plus two Dartmouth Psi U buddies, Cary Stathopoulos and Scott Sorenson, had an amazing visit to Guimaras and to Boracay.

Nonetheless, always on my mind during all of these activities was the construction (and completion) of the guardhouse structure. From the beginning of the project, the MPA Management Board had long-expressed interest in the construction of a guardhouse. To our good fortune, since the CRM Peace Corps program was under review and there were no new CRM volunteers, there was an opportunity to apply for a second grant through USAID to fund the guardhouse. I wrote this grant in May, despite knowing that my contract was ending 6 months later. We needed to secure the funds, plan the structure, and build it before I left the Philippines.

From day one, I worked hard to get things done as quickly as possible. Of course in the Philippines, and especially during the rainy season, this was an endless struggle. It was agreed that the LGU would designate a municipal engineer to come up with the work plan and list of needed building materials, the grant would fund the materials, my counterpart and I would be in charge of delivering all the materials to the MPA site, and the MPA Management Board and the two barangays were in charge of providing all the labor.

As soon as the money came, I started arranging the delivery of materials to Tando. I had canvassed around Iloilo City and Guimaras and determined our best options. None of it was simple. Barangay Tando is located far beyond the end of the roads. Public vehicles do not go with any form of consistency, so every piece of plywood and bag of cement (i.e. anything that wouldn’t fit on a motorcycle) poised a challenge. Nonetheless, we were able to get a massive delivery of 85 bags of cement and various other building materials from a huge truck taking the Ro-Ro (roll on, roll off) from Iloilo all the way to Tando to deliver most of the materials on the original list of materials. A couple extra deliveries were arranged, and construction was ready to begin.

I thought that that was the hard boy. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Every time I visited the guardhouse (approximately twice a week), my chief building manager, a local carpenter who was as, if not more, dedicated to the project and stressed out by it than I was, always told me before I left, “Also, we have a problem.” That problem was always a lack of some sort of materials. Each of these materials that were not included on our original list, including 20 kg of nylon rope, 100 pieces of bamboo, 180 hallow blocks, 80 pieces of nipa, 2.5 cum of gravel, 3 cum of sand, 10 bags of cement, and a variety of nails, rods and other materials, all gave me a task with which to wrestle.

We officially began construction in late June, and the engineer estimated construction would take 25 days. The barangay councils worked hard to rearrange their budgets to afford this mid-year project, and they were able to make it work. Unfortunately, after our 25 days were up, our guardhouse lacked walls and a roof, and our footbridge was only 50% finished. Thankfully our Management Board stepped up and figured out ways to squeeze out some extra funds. Plus, we decided that every Saturday until the guardhouse was finished, we would hold a dagyaw, in which food is provided for workers who volunteer their time to work out in the heat of the Philippine sun and through the cold rain to complete the project.

When it came time to send official invitations to municipal and provincial officials, it was decided that we could finish on Thursday, September 20. We cut it close, and thankfully there was a national holiday, because it was not until two days prior to our schedule launching, on our final dagyaw, when we completed the guardhouse and footbridge were ready for the formal guardhouse inauguration.

The inauguration was a huge success. The mayor, my supervisor, other municipal and provincial officials, and community members from both Barangays Tando and Lucmayan came. We had a coastal clean-up and mangrove-planting along the base of the footbridge. Then there was a short program with some speeches, a house blessing, and then a feast at the guardhouse. The nearly 200-meter long footbridge held and the structure did not sink in the sea under the weight of nearly 75 people. The event was a huge success, and the people of the barangays were clearly extremely proud of all the hard work completed. What I hadn’t initially realized was how having this tangible structure has already made a huge impact on the level of excitement and support for the Tan-Luc MPA within the local communities. For me, all the stress was quickly alleviated, and a strong sense of accomplishment was felt that this guardhouse will be left for the barangays long after I return to America.

Construction begins in Barangay Tando

The guardhouse emerges

That's what friends are for. George, Jade, Bhym2, and Esek help deliver nipa for the roof of the guardhouse

One piece of plywood short. Here Zaldy and Julie, my newest counterpart, tie it to the back of the municipal pickup truck as we heard off to Barangay Tando.

Me and Roy, the guardhouse construction manager

My newest counterpart, Julie aka Pyong, on the footbridge. Yes, that's a Dartmouth t-shirt he bought at an ukay-ukay (second-hand clothing store) months before we met

Working hard on the footbridge

Slowly coming to life

This rope, tied from the shoreline to the guardhouse, was how most of the materials were brought to the guardhouse

Eating lunch during our first dagyaw

Roy describing what's missing to barangay officials

Getting closer

Even I got to help. Carrying bamboo down the footbridge ended up being my most useful function.

Getting much closer

This was the footbridge in the morning of September 18, two days before our launching

Done, just in time

Me and Joebert, the Tan-Luc MPA Vice-Chairman, on the morning of the launching

Our welcoming program. My speech in my Ilonggo/English mix was probably my best yet. I explained how as an Environment Studies major at Dartmouth College, I learned that community-based management strategies are the best way to protect and conserve natural resources and now I have seen this and believe it to be true. I thanked everyone for sharing this experience with me.