Dagami, Leyte – Groups from three municipalities in Leyte will
be meeting this February to discuss the present situation and the major social,
political, economic, and environmental problems besetting their localities.
The assembly seeks to unite concerned sectors on the goals
to advance over the current period and the means to achieve these goals. It is
also intended to chart an initial multi-sectoral program of action especially on
poverty and the backwardness or stagnation of local economies.
Scheduled to be held on February 27, at Dagami town proper, the
said affair will be attended by small farmers, rural wage-earners, womenfolk,
micro-entrepreneurs and motorcycle drivers or operators from select barangays
in the municipalities of Tabon-Tabon, Pastrana and Dagami, in the province of
Leyte.
The lead convenor of the event is the Institute for Local
Innovation and Approach in Development (ILIAD), a non-government organization
helping indigent households undertake enterprise for livelihood through
self-help initiative, while also engaging in technical and management cooperation
with local communities to advance sustainable development.
The activity banners the theme Pagkaurosa ug Paggios Para Katalwasan (Unity and Action for
Salvation), in the face of deeply felt hardships hitting folks with low incomes
or no viable income at all, “marginalized more than ever by recent economic trends,”
ILIAD said.
“The assembly will be an occasion to take stock of what the
masses have gotten all these years,” ILIAD executive director Bimbo Cabidog explained.
“For decades, they have looked up to politicians and officials in high echelons
of government, but got nothing that would genuinely change their lot!”
“The people have continued to miss doing what they themselves
must do,” Mr. Cabidog said, adding: “During elections for instance, they are riveted
to the intramurals and antics in the political arena, but does their situation improve
after? The answer is no, as experience has always told.”
“Ending up empty-handed, and with hardships only getting
worse, the people must now take initiative, make their own decision and wage
their own actions,” Cabidog further said. “No one else will act to end poverty
than the poor themselves, no other time is better to do so than the present,
for actually this has been long overdue.”
The February 27 meet will be a “carpe-diem moment” for folks
in the barangays to unite, move into action and advance their very own social,
political, economic and environmental agenda, the event’s spearhead, ILIAD, stated.
Among the targeted development milestones for discussion and
unity are poverty reduction, community-based economic growth and environmental
sustainability.
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