An Assessment of the Impact of Programs of San Beda College in Holy Family Catholic Mission in Pactil, Bauko, Mountain Province

An Assessment of the Impact of Programs of San Beda College in Holy Family Catholic Mission in Pactil, Bauko, Mountain Province

Ricardo B. Deri, Celedonio B. Mendoza Jr. ,Edilberto B. Viray Jr., Rulina B. Viloria

INTRODUCTION

As a Catholic educational institution, San Beda University has been actively involved in the task of community development and nation building through various community involvement activities initiated by the Institutional Community Involvement Center (ICIC).

The community involvement activities have been developed in accordance with the Mission Statement of the University: To form graduates who are fully human, wholly Christian, truly Filipino and globally competitive. Specific values founded in this Mission include the following: respect for human dignity and human rights, care for the environment, compassion and solidarity with the poor, life of service, life of faith, primacy of the gospel, love of prayer, work and study.

A quick glance at the community involvement activities of the University reveals that in the past several years, the different departments, in coordination with ICIC, offered the following services to the target communities, research, formal and informal education, leadership training, livelihood assistance, social services, legal services, medical assistance and spiritual formation. The target communities and beneficiaries vary in terms of sectoral representation. These include the urban poor, out-of-school youth, farmers, the sick, the elderly and aged, prisoners, orphans, tribal and fishing communities.

One of the strategies used by the University for a meaningful community involvement is through community organizing/building. This requires that the University has to identify a partner community where capability building and other forms of development will be at work together with the people. This may be in the form of livelihood development, skills development, leadership development, spiritual growth and health improvement.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Partnership with Pactil. Since 2011, San Beda University through ICIC, is implementing meaningful community development programs and activities in Pactil, Bauko, Mountain Province. As a partner community of the University and with the participation of its faculty, students, non-teaching personnel and alumni, activities were conducted along the areas of organization building, networking and collaboration with government, private and non-government organizations, capability building, leadership training, spiritual and values formation, educational assistance, social services, livelihood and entrepreneurial capabilities and community research.

The involvement of San Beda University in Pactil dates back in 1960s when a Belgian Sisters and Fr. Pablo Bilog of Pacdal Parish asked some assistance from St. Benedict Crusade in San Beda University- Manila, for the construction of the chapel. The chapel, named as St. Benedict Chapel, was finally erected in 1967 in Pactil. It was also used a classroom during school days. (Sitio Pactil Profile, ICIC Document).

Since then, the Benedictine monks, headed by Bro. Felipe Bautista, started to visit the place and served as its community and venue for apostolate and immersion.

However, there was a sudden absence of the Benedictine monks in the community in 1990s. In July 2011, a reconnection was successfully implemented by the San Beda University Benedictine Educational Foundation, Inc. (SBUBEFI) and the ICIC.

Six years since the start of reconnection, organizations were formed such as St. Bede Mushroom and Vegetable Growers Association (SBMVGA) and the Pactil Youth Organization. Other members of the community who are not part of these organizations were also given assistance by SBU-ICIC and SBUFEFI such as members of Basic Ecclesial Community, Knights of Columbus, Pactil Elementary School and the Barangay Council of Monamon Sur. Table 1 below shows the summary of programs and services extended by ICIC in partnership with SBUBEFI in Pactil from 2011-2017:

In its sixth year of working in the area, ICIC deemed it necessary to stop for a while and assess the programs and services implemented. It is expected that at this stage, the community people have already been aware of the progressive nature of their working relationship with San Beda University through ICIC.

It is in this light that this research was conducted to determine the impact of SBU-ICIC programs to the living condition of the community members. Specifically, it aims to:

1. Develop an updated socio-cultural characteristics or profile of the members of the project holders in Pactil;

2. Assess the programs of SBU-ICIC in terms of the respondents’ skills development, livelihood capability and spiritual growth;

3. Investigate the influence of socio-cultural attributes to the respondents’ skills development, livelihood capability and cultural growth;

4. Identify possible areas for re-designing the ICIC programs in Pactil; and

5. Present and validate the interpretation of the data to the community people and ICIC’s partner organizations such as SBUBEFI and LGU of Bauko.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Today, it is no longer sufficient for educational institutions to stick to their traditional functions of instruction and research, Institutions of higher learning are now called upon to perform a third and equally important function, that of community extension. This challenges universities and colleges to come down to extend, reach out, to share or to learn and relate with people of the community for which they a part. Intellectual education, accumulated information and academic excellence are empty and meaningless if not extended to the marginalized. Educational institutions must involve themselves in meeting the needs of the community by putting their professional and technical expertise at the people’s disposal. Indeed, it is a major function of education to widen the options available in the solution of community problems and the improvement of the quality of life of the people in the community. This is especially true and necessary if the people are located in developing countries of the world (Pangilinan, 1997).

To fully realize the above, one of the basic considerations used by Institutional CIC of San Beda University is to draw a line between the so called “community service” and “community development”.

Community service refers to a wide range of volunteer work done in the community (Grey et.al, 1999). Further, this involves short-ranged activities aimed at responding to the specific needs of a community or beneficiaries (Manalili, 1990). Medical mission, gift-giving and relief goods distribution are examples. Community development, on the other hand, is a model of community organizing/building, the essence of which is people’s participation. It is a participation that harnesses and strengthens the people’s capacities to determine and realize the development agenda of their own communities at various levels. Participation must give people a voice in development and management decisions, access to resources, the knowledge required for development and a share in the benefits achieved (Buenviaje, 2003; Ewalt, et. al., 1999). Therefore, it involves a dynamic interplay of the community people and the community development worker. These dynamics happen in the context of an institution, as represented by the community development worker, adopting or in partnership with a particular community.

San Beda University’s experience in in working with its partner communities revealed the presence of interdependence of the two. Students, faculty, administrators and service personnel mostly initiate community service activities. In addition, they are actively involved in community development work with their partner/adopted communities. Given this, the University accepts the fact that in most occasions it has to render community services with its partner communities especially during times of disaster and calamities. In other words, the separation of community service and community development is difficult because the two are intertwining community involvement tasks. Therefore, the Institutional CIC made use of the concept of community development process in the formulation of its programs and activities, while at the same time providing community services most especially to its partner/adopted communities and institutions (government and private), hospitals/clinics, prisons, parishes and other sectors.

The Process as a Fundamental Element of Community Development

As mentioned earlier, community development is a function of a dynamic interplay between the community people and the community development worker. The former, popularly known as the stakeholders, have different interests in development. The latter is the partner of the people in development. S/he acts as a catalyst for participatory development. The community development worker could be a single person or a team of development workers usually attached to the institutions.

Working with people in the community can take on different stages or phases. These include the vital processes encountered (Manalili, 2013). Figure 1 presents the various steps within a progressively interrelated phases and include vital processes as its integral parts.

These are: (1) Pre-entry Phase. Since community development is entering into a development partnership with the community people, it requires basic considerations and preparations. Basic considerations include: (a) acceptability of an institution and/pr community development worker to the community; (b) resources to engage in community building – human and material. Social investigation is an indispensable aspect of this phase. It is a process of gathering, analyzing and utilizing pertinent data about the community. A community profile is a documentary output of social investigation consisting of the description of the community and analysis of community situation. (2) Entry Into the Community with Immersion/Integration Phase. Establishing a friendly yet purposeful relationship starts upon entry of the community development worker into the community. It entails leveling of expectations and clarification of purpose and reciprocal roles of community people and the community development worker (Buenviaje, 2003; Manalili, 2013). The aim is to get the community’s sanction and commitment to engage in a partnership with the institution for participatory development. Immersion and integration with the people refer to the basic continuing effort by which the community development worker becomes one with the community people by integrating him/herself in the community life. This is a germination process of building trust and cooperation networks now commonly called building the social capital ((Putnam, R. 1993). (3) Organizational Development. This signals that the community people and community development worker are already prepared to work together as partners in development.

The aim is to enhance the capacities of the community people to, become self-determined and socially formation responsible. Together, they undertake the formation or strengthening, expansion and consolidation of people-centered organization/s and evolve community-managed development programs/projects (Manalili, 2013). The community development worker begins to contribute his/her catalyzing efforts of engaging the community people in a shared leadership, participatory decisionmaking, scientific and discerning problem-solving, creative conflict management and resource development. (4) Phase Over. From the very start during the leveling of expectations done upon entry and consistently demonstrated all throughout the succeeding phases, the community people have already been aware of the progressive nature of their working relationship with the community development worker. Hence, this phase enables the community people to achieve a gradually unfolding leap or advancement in their higher level of consciousness, of commitment to, and competency in participatory development. It is important that during this phase and even prior to this, the community people and the community development worker stop for a while and assess the programs and projects implemented. Thus, monitoring and evaluation is a leaning tool for awareness creation which can be done by the program/project implementers themselves or the outsiders (Buenviaje, 2003).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In view of the purpose for the study, the research design utilized for the study is descriptive. The study is carried out in Sitio Pactil, Barangay Monamon Sur. The population for the study comprise all the participating social entrepreneurs in the San Beda-Manila’s Institutional Community Involvement Center program.

A sample size of 29 entrepreneurs who are members of St. Bede Mushroom and Vegetable Growers Association was drawn from the study population through purposive and simple random sampling procedure. The instrument for data collection is a questionnaire which had a Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.994. The questionnaire was structured into three sections A, B and C. Section A required the sociodemographic profile of the respondents’ while section B, had 10 items structured to elicit information from the respondents’ on their participation, views and opinions about organizations and how the SBU has been able to influence the capability development of these enterprises. Lastly, section C had five (5) items each in three (3) dimensions namely skills development, livelihood development and spiritual development.

The response format is on a five-point Likert Scale with options of SA- Strongly Agreed, A- Agreed, N-Neutral, D- Disagree, and SD- Strongly Disagreed. Data collected from the study is analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools which include frequency table, percentages and OLS regression. The Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS) and GRETL are used to analyze the data collected. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significant Level.

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

The following are the results of the survey. The first part presents the socio-demographic profile of the respondents. Lastly, data is presented as to the assessment of the respondents on how SBU-ICIC programs have significantly affected their skills development, livelihood development and spiritual development. The first and second parts are presented vis-a-viv the average daily income earned by the respondents.

Age Group. The majority of the respondents (34.5% ) are 50 years old and above. This is followed by respondents whose ages range from 40-49 for which 27.6% belong. There are 7 (24.1%) respondents for age bracket 30-39. Only about 13.8% of the respondents are below 30 years old. Generally, the age distribution implies mature individuals who are members of the livelihood organizations.

Looking at the income levels received by the respondents on a daily basis, 23 of them are earning Php200 and below. A minimal number of 3 respondents are earning an average daily income of Php301 and above.

Gender. The majority of the respondents are women (96.6%) and only one among the 29 respondents is male. These women are members of the livelihood project in the area organized by SBU -ICIC. Besides being vegetable growers themselves, it can be implied that their membership is brought about by their active participation in community meetings and activities. This is normal in a rural setting where females are mostly the ones who actively participate into these community activities because the male member of the household is usually busy making a living for the household.

Household Size. The results reveals that majority of the respondents (55.2%) have household size of about 5-7 members. This is followed by 7 of the respondents or 24.1% whose household size has 2 -4 members. It can be implied that the community’s normal household size (5-7 members) is not an ideal Filipino household size.

Source of Income. The results shows that farming is the major source of income of the respondents, registering 19 or 65.5% of the responses. This is followed by 6 responses or 20.7% of the respondents for which their teaching and potato chips making are their main sources of income. No one among the respondents is into livestock as a source of income. This can be attributed by the topographical condition (specially climate is not conducive) of the area which may not be suitable for livestock farming.

Sufficiency of Income. When r espondents ar e asked whether they feel sufficient or not with the income that they receive, the results reveals that majority of the respondents (21 out of 29 or 72.4%) answered that there is sufficiency of income. This may be accounted for by the very simple lifestyle that respondents are practicing. For them, it is sufficient that basic needs such as food and education are addressed and not such luxury in the household or family exists.

Ranking of Spending Priorities (Top One Only). Twenty seven (27) or 90% of the respondents said that spending for basic needs ranked as their top priority. Basic needs include food, clothing and shelter. Food for them is very essential and they make sure that there is food served on the table for the family. Clothing, on the other hand is also essential for which there is adequate clothing that will keep them warm from the cold weather in the area.

The other areas for spending priorities (health services, community contribution, livelihood and education/training) received a very minimal response. This indicates their inability to give a portion of their income to spend for these items. For example, they will not at all risk spending for livelihood training unless this training is given for free.

Membership in Organizations. The results reveals that the top three organizations for which the respondents are active members are the following: Saint Bede Mushroom and Vegetable Growers Association (SBMVGA); and Pactil Women’s Group and Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC). The data on membership received multiple responses from the respondents. There are respondents who are members of SBMVGA while at the same time members also of Pactil’s Women’s Group and BEC. This indicates that respondents are not confined into just one organization but they can still be actively involved in other organizations in the community whether this is for cultural or religious group.

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

On Skills Development and Age. Given the attributes from 1 to 5, almost 75.86% of the entire respondents answered “Strongly Agree” in all aspect but, the age bracket 30-39 recognizably replied “Agree”. In this area, this is considered as the “early adulthood” ideally this age bracket are the group that is open, willing and able to learn more especially when it comes to their current status in life. With this, it is important for the organizer to identify the age brackets that will appreciate and openly accepts the program that will hasten progress and nourish their skills that will be applicable in all the aspects of their life.

On Skills Development and Income. Given all the five (5) attributes, 89.66% responded “Strongly Agree” wherein they all believed that skills development offered by the program are all significant in helping them develop their skills in farming, exercise their civil rights and helps them to be firm in their decision-making, opening their minds to the growing potentials of agri-business, enhance their skills to adapt to the political, economic, social, technological and environmental challenges and improve the quality of their life. And only, less than 9% answered “agree” and “neutral” which is almost insignificant.

LIVELIHOOD DEVELOPMENT

On Livelihood Development and Age. With all the attributes from 1 to 5, the age bracket 30-39 still considerably as a critical group wherein they replied “agree” in all questions as compare to the entire age brackets were they all reacted “strongly agree” in all aspects. When it comes to the livelihood development, especially on answering the questions like “the program enables us to earn additional income” and “explore more opportunities for income and improve the communities livelihood” the age group 30-39 answered a distinguish “agree”. This might be the stage of contemplating the issues of unemployment and psychosocial risks according to Australian-New Zealand Psychiatry. In this stage, they are exposed to unemployment concern and had small but pervasive effects on psychosocial outcomes.

On Livelihood Development and Income. With all the five (5) attributes, same with the skills development, almost everybody responded “strongly agree” wherein they all deemed that livelihood development program offered to them has a magnitude in improving their earning capabilities, exploring more opportunities for income generation, advancing their families and community’s livelihood and providing them to alternative source of living.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

On Spiritual Development and Age. Again, given the attributes from 1 to 5, still the age bracket 30-39 showed its difference from other age brackets by answering “agree” in all aspects as compare to the “strongly agree” remarks by the majority of the respondents. In spiritual discussion, the researchers consider millennial issue arising in this stage which clearly explains the answer “agree” of the 30-39 age brackets. According to the website Lucky Attitude, UK study on Millennial Characteristics, they describe them as “non-religious,” wherein they had no religion nor attended a place of worship, other than for a wedding or a funeral. They also thought that religion is the cause of evil in the world more often than good.

Spiritual Development vs Income. Given all the five (5) attributes, majority of the respondents replied “strongly agree” that spiritual development offered was very much significant as almost all of them approved that the program strengthen their relationship with God, family and community, how they perceived life in a positive way and living life with a purpose. In addition, respondents easily accept the presence of spiritual development in the program because they obviously considered their traditions and ethnic orientation in believing by the power of nature and God in providing all their blessings, like a better harvest and more food in the table.

FINDINGS AND IMPRESSIONS:

1. Impact on spiritual development is strong followed by livelihood development. It is noteworthy that skills development has weak impact for the respondents. The cultural background of the respondents from Sitio Pactil of being “mahiyain” and low selfconfidence should also be considered.

2. The impact of the other aspects of community life were not sufficiently addressed (social, health, political, etc.) for lack of data or non-inclusion in the questionnaire. Limited data were taken from the community during the entry phase since initial visit were focused on reconnection (spiritual dimension) and later on livelihood. For example, a comprehensive community profile could have been done in the beginning phase of the community organizing work by ICIC to be able to establish impact in terms of socioeconomic status of the community. Another profiling could have been done together with this study to really determine changes or development in the socio-economic status.

3. A more holistic approach to community development must be in place requiring a well-articulated plan of programs and actions including measurable expected change or improvement in the socio-economic status of the community. While there is a 6 year development plan, there was no quantifiable indicators stipulated.

4. Close monitoring of the implementation of the programs and plans of the people in the organization must be established so that any problems or difficulties that may arise can be immediately or easily addressed or worked-out. This can be realistically done if there is a social worker assigned from the local government unit of Bauko to closely monitor the programs and plan of the organization.