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By WALTER BALANE
of Mindanews

1st of three parts

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MALAYBALAY City–In a corner at the local crafts store, 38-year old Marj Libanda, father of two, strings beads into a headdress to meet a local order. He has been at this for a couple of weeks even as some say this is not a man’s job.

Libanda used to be a security guard for a poultry farm and had earlier worked as farm laborer, vendor and construction worker.

In the handicrafts store of Perla Rubio, an exporter of fashion accessories, Libanda earns an average of 200 pesos a day based on the number of pieces he finishes. A friend has enticed him to work in a construction project where the pay is higher  but there is no vacancy for now. Back in Manalog, an upland village here, neighbors earn a living as farmers of abaca and weavers of its textile product.

His mother is among the village’s long time weavers. But they are experiencing a slowdown of production of due to a number of problems, including diseases plaguing abaca hills and lack of access to financing to buy weaving machines.

Rubio, his employer, says business is picking up but notes that while local crafts may be able to compete in the domestic and international markets, cost issues are a problem.

National government agencies like the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) have provided Rubio support but she is not getting any help from agencies nearer her.

“There is no support from the local government. We don’t see them backing us,” she said.

For Rubio, local government units (LGUs) must support small and medium enterprises in their area, especially in helping them access enterprise development and business opportunities.

Rubio said she has been wanting to join a trade fair in Malaysia, hoping to tap the market in the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean). But getting there is a problem due to transportation and other costs.

Romeo Montenegro, Mindanao Development Authority assistant secretary, said  LGUs play a critical role in realizing many of the targets under Asean integration. He cited the effort to generate wider public engagement across political, economic and socio-cultural pillars.

The Brunei -Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area Bimp-Eaga LGU Forum (LGF), he added, has been adopted as a regular venue for local governments of the focus areas to convene, exchange ideas and pursue possible collaboration to complement specific projects of different clusters. So far, the Bimp-Eaga has five pillars: connectivity, food basket, tourism, environment and socio-cultural.

But he admitted that the forum is convened only if there is a meeting of the ministers. When there is none, they don’t see each other.

In the Bimp-Eaga Vision (BEV) 2025, the new blueprint for development in the subegion, the LGF is considered an institutional mechanism. Started in 2004-2005, the forum is made of the chief ministers of Sabah and Sarawak and the chairman of the Labuan Corporation in Malaysia, and governors of the provinces of Indonesia and the Philippines; Brunei Darussalam is represented by its Ministry of Home Affairs.

Much remains to be done about the forum, which is supposed to promote cooperative activities and opportunities for cross-border trade and investment on a bilateral or multilateral basis.

Interestingly, while the 12th Bimp-Eaga Summit identified “increasing local government engagement” as one of four aims, only one of the 22-item joint statements at the end of the summit in Manila last April mentioned local government.

“We urge our respective concerned agencies at the national and local levels to provide policy, technical, funding and administrative support to ensure the effective, efficient and timely delivery of the BEV 2025,” it said.

Montenegro attributed this to the lack of multilateral framework on how LGUs can participate directly.

“There is no functional mechanism yet that the LGF can operate on its own. This is something we will still have to build,” he added.

On the side of the Philippines, he said, they are looking at establishing first the Mindanao-wide framework.

“We are not looking at Davao and General Santos cities only, we will factor in the other LGUs,” he added.

Montenegro said so far there are only bilateral frameworks between Davao and Manado (Indonesia) cities and Palawan and Kudat (Malaysia) primarily because of the direct connectivity, specifically commercial flights, already established in the past.

He admitted, too, that initial feats in engaging the LGUs are limited only to the key cities like Davao and General Santos. Nothing has been substantially done for interior provinces, like Bukidnon.

Jezreel Mangubat, Acting Provincial Planning and Development Officer of Bukidnon, one of Mindanao’s 27 provinces, said there is no direct engagement in activities as yet between the province and the movers behind Bimp-Eaga mechanisms.

“It’s just indirect. Our only possible connection is our alignment to the Philippine Development Plan (PDP). We have to align our plan to the PDP,” he said.

Mangubat said he looked forward to capacity development opportunities so LGUs can be more mindful of working towards the direction of Bimp-Eaga.

Local planners admit that the private sector in the locality have been directly involved through their business chamber and DTI.

Roleyne Florendo, in-charge of the Bukidnon Investment and Export Promotion Office, said in the last five years that they have not been involved in any forum organized to mainstream the Bimp-Eaga among the LGUs.

In 2015, DTI-Southern Mindanao invited the province for the setting up of the Bimp-Eaga (Philippines) Trade, Tourism and Investment Promotion Center. But it was only so they can invite producers or micro small and medium enterprises to display in that center.

Mangubat said it is important to include all LGUs in Mindanao not just the cities of Davao and General Santos and the provinces of South Cotabato and Sarangani.

“One advantage if LGUs are included in the circulation is they can factor in opportunities in Bimp-Eaga in local planning mechanisms, like the local Commodity Investment Plan,” he added. The CIP is an expression of the LGU’s use of local resources to develop priority commodities like coffee, mango, coconut coir and even Abaca.

Mangubat said provinces have vast potential of participation in regional integration through trade, tourism and agricultureelated industries.

“That is if LGUs in the periphery (like Bukidnon) are directly involved,” he added. (walter balane of mindanews)

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