May Liwanag ang Buhay

(c) Ai Belino

This might be an ordinary picture for us since we always see this (and not even notice its existence) everytime we go out of our houses. But for the relocatees of the relocation site in Southville 7, Calauan, Laguna, this is a treasure -- A long lost privilege that they have been longing and fighting for. Since they were relocated in 2009, they had not accessed electricity and potable water. This is because the relocatees (who came from different parts of Manila) were not registered voters in Laguna. Therefore, the local government unit can do nothing but to ignore these relocatees since they were not official residents of the province.

However, through the help of our block (Development Communication batch 2012), we had made efforts to gather all the stakeholders in two sets of round table discussions to tackle the existing issues and hindrances in providing them basic necessities.

Ms. Gina Lopez (ABS CBN Foundation),
in a discussion with the relocatees.

Ms. Gina, Mr. Monchet of ABS CBN together
with our professors Mr. Charlton and Ms. Liz

The first RTD with Laguna LGU, Maynilad, Meralco,
DSWD, National Housing Authority (NHA) and AFI

Aside from our efforts (and stress) to gather them all in an RTD, we had also made an intervention to provide a sustainable development for them. Sustainable development means something that will last longer even beyond the duration of our intervention. So definitely it was not the conventional distribution of relief goods and old clothes that people usually know. We called up the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and National Statistics Office (NSO) to provide a satellite registration for them Through this, the relocatees will already acquire the basic necessities and privileges from the local government of Calauan, Laguna, including the electricity.

Comelec Satellite Registration

Meanwhile, the other group put up a herbal garden for them to acquire cheap and organic medicines and a program to teach the relocatees the proper hygiene using herbal and organic soaps.

Months after the intervention, some of my classmates revisited the site to observe the latest updates and developments. And we're glad to hear that probably by next month, they may already access electricity. This is indeed a BIG ACHIEVEMENT for us that we can actually say May kaliwanagan na rin sa wakas ang aming mga Ginawa. At last, the relocatees can actually celebrate the light that will guide their lives. Those 6000 households in the area may be not be aware of what we have contributed, but we're glad and it's our pleasure to share the liwanag to them!