Validated

Validated

I still can't forget the evaluation/validation activity by DSWD Region I that my colleagues and I went through last week. The whole exercise was about us proving to the agency that we are indeed doing all the anti-poverty efforts we say we've been doing.

With our head officially on study leave in Taiwan (so he wasn't available) and our administrator on vacation in Australia (thankfully available live on video), I hazarded to take a ringside seat in the hopes of being queried at least in my area of public information. Lo and behold, it turned out to be a grand recitation exam for us all -- one we didn't expect.

Our guests, the validators -- who are so kind and friendly, let me be clear -- fielded questions we didn't see coming. "Okay, we've read your application. What we want to know are those you didn't write about in the 10-page document."

Now that was a total surprise. Fortunately, we came prepared -- not really prepared, but forearmed with the right knowledge, knowing our right hand from our left simply because we are actually doing the job we say we are doing.

As validation work goes, each answer was probed with an accompanying polite request for MOVs or means of validation. It is fortunate that we are veterans of many an SGLG and ISO audit, so we were mostly able to provide those, except for a few that were hard to find for some reason.

I am happy to report that each head and representative was able to answer questions confidently and in all honesty. It is, frankly, amazing to see each head or representative respond calmly and collectedly after being called upon from their cubicle in the middle of the work day without warning or prior instruction: the municipal accountant, the head of the Local School Board, the local civil registrar, the nutritionist, name it.

In the end, the clincher was dropped upon us like a bomb: "Why do you think you deserve to win?"

Gee, I thought, I love this question but so many answers are circulating in my mind right now all at the same time, so I kind of panicked like a beauty pageant contestant being asked how best to bring about world peace while wearing close to nothing.

Deep inside me, I wanted to shout, we don't just deserve a regional award but no less than national recognition. Call it braggadocio, call me biased and exaggerated, but that's what I honestly think.

I am glad I answered the way I wanted it to be, that my response was a cinch. It was all about leadership, I said. Leaders with vision, with transformative style, spearheads in poverty alleviation if ever there was one. ...Leaders who go out of their way, even try unorthodox means, to get the job done.

To be honest, I haven't seen a mayor (or two succeeding mayors, in fact) who would do everything they have done to our little town, from being a backwater to a bustling one on the brink of cityhood.

I haven't heard of a local chief executive announcing a revolution against poverty without turning communist and walks the talk by coming up with a concrete comprehensive (10-year) plan, the Bayambang Poverty Reduction Plan 2018-2028, with not a leaf left unturned, and actually implement it. In fact, this grand project is something that the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) itself would confirm to be a pioneering effort nationwide.

I haven't heard of a local chief who would -- in so short a time -- prioritize public works that would benefit the masses all at once: a decent events place, a tricycle terminal, an expanded public market, a renovated public plaza, barangay roads, barangay rural health units and police outposts, barangay halls and multi-purpose courts, a polytechnic college that offers scholarships to the disadvantaged or underprivileged, a free housing project for the indigent, emergency hotline with rescue personnel, equipment and vehicles, expanded disaster response services, digitalization of government processes, strengthened access to public information, renovation and expansion of public market, farm mechanization and a one-stop-shop farmers' app, a dairy farm, a hatchery, a central terminal, and even, get this, a large-scale irrigation project in the works and a planned redevelopment of a long-overcrowded but ignored public cemetery. Add to these unprecedented developments a world-class tourist attraction, a new economic zone with theme park, an agricultural complex, and a tertiary hospital, among many other projects -- all built with such speed in their private capacity and all envisioned to generate jobs and benefit a lot of ordinary people.

I haven't heard of other public officials who would willingly donate their salary for the entire year, year by year, to the community, on top of a litany of other personal donations, in the face of limited government resources.

In our town, even beauty pageants are anti-poverty measures through promotion of individual personal anti-poverty advocacies, fashion shows for a cause, ukay-ukays (used signature clothes and items for a cause), and the like.

The sheer daring, boldness, chutzpah to even take on all these. I thought only a fool would dare try.

I haven't seen someone, or a couple, who are more pro-poor in their actual output.

Near the end, I was reminded of some of the unique innovations we've had and the sheer luck (or blessings) we were graced with: the creation of a special department, the Bayambang Poverty Reduction Action Team, as a coordinative body to oversee all antipoverty efforts anchored on transparent governance; the fact that our administrator was formerly connected with the Presidential Management Office and the NAPC; and the fact that our first couple are successful business folk blessed with considerable and honestly earned means and resources and, more importantly, generous hearts.

These answers of mine and those of the rest of us unraveled one by one from the thoughtful line of questioning of our auditors, smart cookies all. They really know how to dig deep. I especially appreciate how they were slowly able to bring to light our hidden "whole-of-system approach" of doing things.

Whatever the outcome is, we already won by default for surviving a board exam-level of inquisition with flying colors.

I, for one, emerged from that meeting totally exhausted but satisfied because I felt that all of our efforts at helping our poor constituents were finally validated from the outside.