Pagtinabangay Foundation Inc.
18 February 2002
We are a very small Ormoc City-based NGO with assets of less than a million pesos including fixed assets in the name of the foundation. We have been in the development work for over 12 years now. We were born in late 1988 but registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in October, 1989. We operate on a per project basis. No project, no operation. This year, 2002, we are implementing only one project worth over a million pesos. We are sustaining two offices one in Ormoc City and one in Naval, Biliran.There are nine of us in the foundation who are working on a regular basis. Our allowances are elastic. It can be stretched from P7,000.00 a month per person to Zero as is the case with our Executive Director this year. Every year we scamper around for funds to sustain our operations for the next year.
Late last year, one of our colleagues attended an assembly of CODE-NGO where the Peace bonds was presented by Marissa Camacho-Reyes. Truly, right then the staff believed that the Peace bonds was a government indebtedness but frankly, Dan Songco's P3,000,000.00 a year per NGO offer was very tempting, what with the kind of financial difficulties our foundation is in at the moment. Candidly, we have come to a point canceling some commitments for travel to conferences for lack of funds to accommodate such travels. ISLACOM has barred us from using their line for non-payment of bills. Submitting a project proposal to the PEACE FOUNDATION to access what Dan has offered to benefit our peasant-beneficiaries, was one course we could have chosen. Mulling over the whole thing, however, we come to realize the immorality behind it all. The main purpose of the Peace Bonds actually was not really for poverty eradication but for ensuring delivery of GMA's SONA promises. Second was for NGOs' sustainability. Poverty eradication only came a poor third alibi.
Sustainability, though a problem to us, does not give us an excuse to jump into the foray of the CODE-NGO. To access their fund only means blinding ourselves to the issues that surround the P1.4 billion fund, issues on good governance, transparency, influence peddling and corruption. How are we going to explain the fund to our beneficiary-partners, the small farmers and fisher folks, who will eventually share the burden of paying the indebtedness incurred by the government through CODE? How will we justify our position to them, especially after we have explained to them our positions on governance and corruption and other moral evils besetting our government?
Rest assured we are not against CODE-NGO as a network. We will continue to be your affiliate especially in ensuring high morals among civil society and in guarding the Code of Ethics of Non-Government Organization for which the network was primarily organized.
EMIL B. JUSTIMBASTE
Executive Director
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