We Survive as One Bohol 

recovery fund at P 819M 

CORTES, Bohol, July 25, (PIA)—The road to a new normal for Bohol past this Corona virus disease (COVID) pandemic is through an estimated P 819,876,762.000 program that would alleviate some 700,000 Boholanos through mitigations and interventions that would also entail resources from the Provincial Government, national government agencies and the civil society groups and partners, bared a Capitol source. 

The “We Survive as One Bohol Program” is set to mitigate the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Province of Bohol and is expected to benefit about 700,000 Boholanos through relief assistance, economic stimulus packages, infrastructure program and self-help initiatives, a summary of the program presentation presented by Provincial Planning and Development Officer Atty John Titus Vistal would show. 

While the Provincial Government of Bohol is set to bankroll the huge part of the program, national government agencies, financial institutions and the countless civil society organizations have been tapped to put in resources into the fiscal pool to get everyone afloat and survive as one Bohol past the medical tribulation that has already toppled economies and put businesses to bankruptcies. 

And while anticipating for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Week, the Provincial Development and Planning Officer bared a Province-led economic stimulus package that is set to jumpstart the local economy towards the new normal by assisting MSMEs, providing livelihood assistance to displaced workers and put in the trellis for the agriculture that has kept Bohol fed and attain a food security that can propel the agro-industry into an enticing sector for the young. 

And to get the development spread out while communities can get a feel of their own initiated projects funded, the same We Survive as One Bohol program puts up an infrastructure investment intended for barangay-level infrastructure projects. 

The program, according to Atty Vistal, intends to empower, capacitate and perk up individuals and organizations into more productivity-oriented initiatives. 

He named students, pre-schoolers, undernourished children and pregnant women, quarantine and medical front-liners, COVID-displaced Workers, affected agri-fishery sectors, farming families, livestock raisers, dairy farmers, agriculture cooperatives and people’s organizations and MSMEs as immediate beneficiaries of the P 800 million capital. 

Foremost among the interventions is Bohol’s economic stimulus to pump-prime the MSMEs through a P200 million Surety Guarantee Fund for Coopreneurs and MSMEs. To date, listing and prequalification of cooperatives as program conduits is ongoing, and aside from the Provincial Government’s Investment Promotion Center, Treasurers Office and Budget Office, LandBank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines are joining hands to implement this. 

With the mandatory stay at home germinating the entrepreneurial spirit of most Boholanos who delved into online selling and barters, Bohol is now set to stream into that direction with its Localized Online Market called Agriculture Retail and Trade (ART Bohol) through the ART app. 

ART app is a virtual marketplace that provides opportunities for Boholanos to provide ease and options to supply products and the island’s more than 10,000 cooperatives and coop members plus the sidelined motor-service drivers can pick up where they left off with the deliveries and reselling. 

The estimated P50 million ART Bohol capital fund is put up by the Provincial Government in partnership with Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines and First Consolidated Bank as well as local cooperatives (through the Bohol Credit Surety Fund) to provide start-up capital for income-generating projects, shared Atty Vistal during the recent Bohol Inter Agency Task Force StratCom Cluster virtual Meeting. 

To date, Bohol is now on the development of eMarketing platform stage, while the identification of MSMEs and products for onboarding continues. 

Now being led by a former Agriculture Secretary, Bohol has taken a second hard look at agriculture, after seeing how tourism can be a fragile economic driver especially with the COVID-threat. 

Now plowing for Agriculture for Rural Transformation (ART), Bohol has ventured into P67,311,639.00 capital investments in support to Vegetable and Water Enhancement Program, P2,000,000.00 cash for work programs for agri productivity, P250,000.00 fund for market assistance in Tabo sa Bohol mobile merkado, P1,200,695.00 fund for Vegetable and Fish Farming, P70,843,907.00 Advanced Rice Technology, P6,000,000.00 Fish Trading Program, P6,166,000.00 Livestock and Poultry Production Enhancement, P8,500,00.00 Integrated Community Dairy Farming and the P12,738,220.00 Enhanced Productivity and Profitability of Swine Production or a total of P 167,360.461.00. 

The Program also includes the P180 million Bohol Relief Assistance Program that includes Food Relief, Food Vouchers for Trash, Community Fresh-Milk Feeding Program, Assistance to Boholanos Offshore and the Returning Boholanos Program. The Releif Assistance Program however has reached P230 Million, recent reports bared. 

For Barangay Level Infrastructure Program, Bohol is set to fund P110,900,000 for its 1,109 barangays. 

And while the Provincial Government is set to spend an estimated total of P561,618,762.00 for these, in convergence, national government agencies have committed to put in P 658,000.00 and the people’s organizations, civil society groups and business sectors here have eyed a prop-up fund of P257,600,000, Atty Vistal reported. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

WE SURVIVE AS ONE. Bohol’s livestock native chicken growers and small farmers contribute what they can, sometimes giving out chicken production started sets to other Boholano farmers as Bohol embarks on a convergence fund of P800 million for its people’s recovery past this COVID-19 pandemic. (PIABohol/PGBh)

HELPING FARMERS MARKET THEIR PRODUCE. Tabo sa Bohol Mobile Merkado has generated total sales reaching P5,961,845 and helped by serving an estimated 12,356 buyers who flocked to the agri flea markets with farmers directly selling their produce. (PIABOhol/PGBh)