FEATURE: 

At home in a garden at Jolits Eco Farm 

Thousands of graduates proceed with their lives in jobs not really related with their college courses. In Bohol, two young agriculturists never thought banking on their extensive years in integrated pest management can lead them to build a home where their kids wake up to a garden in a middle of a model learning site for integrated diversified organic farming here. 

Now with the Agricultural Training Institute’s (ATI) certification as an Agricultural Learning Site, Jolit’s Garden and Eco Farm, owned by couple Jomar Meletante Balag and Lita Ocho Balag in Barangay Cambacay Batuan sprouted from a 100 square meter farm testing in aquaculture on a sandy clay soil characteristic of the area. 

In fact, developing that small patch that may not really sustainably feed a family has earned criticisms from neighbors who know that without much water in the area, growing, much more relying on a garden to feed the family is next to foolhardy. 

The designated farm area is an undulating lot with bushes typical of clay soil and some shallow depressions with stagnant shallow water which the rains have left. Behind is a tall hill with secondary growth timberlands. Nothing really promising. 

Not to Jomar, whose life has been toughened by overcoming challenges. 

In his final years in high school in Lourdes in Panglao, he joined 7 other students who hoped to get scholarships from a Japanese company to proceed to college. 

Born in Danao Panglao and dreaming of getting a better life, Jomar hurdled each test mostly associated with the lack of financial capacity to buy his way out of problems. 

He had his first strike at luck when he earned a college scholarship through the Japanese company as benefactor. 

Even with a college scholarship, where most men of raw timbre would just lie down and await for the next bell for class, Jomar still tried to find work. Accepted as school striver assigned at the registrar’s office while at the Central Visayas State College for Agriculture, Forestry and Technology, now Bohol Island State University in Bilar, Jomar dug a hole of diligence where he could sow his future. 

Knowing he would need hard work to bleed out food from his small patch of land in Panglao, Jomar had to brutally test his muscles in hard work and take his studies to heart. 

His heart incidentally found a girl, beautiful, modest and equally hardworking. 

To him, Lita Sabijon Ocho was a girl worthy to be his wife, and motivated him to double up work even harder. 

Also a working student of a faculty member in school, Lita was then taking Bachelor of Agriculture major in Integrated Pest Management. 

Truly intent on pursuing his dreams and his love for Lita, his persistence, hard work and diligence sprouted a love story, finding each other a motivation to escape the wretched life. 

Graduating Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Major in Integrated Pest Management, Jomar found himself taking on the same course that preoccupied her, knowing that if luck wills it, they both will have to work together to make their chances in farming better. 

Married in 2005 after graduation, Jomar felt he needed a stable job he would need to start a family. Not farming as the pay was not as promising and cash came only after harvest. 

This led him to take on an offer for him to work in Japan, care of his benefactor. He immediately went on a crash course in Basic Japanese Language in Cebu and by November, was off to Japan. 

Three years, before the contract ends and Jomar knew Lita has delivered his first child, one a father would never have missed. But, feeding a family now becomes even more pressing. 

Homesick, tired and alone, Jomar still performed well to the delight of his benefactor until he decided to come home to his wife after his contract ended. 

That was when husband and wife started to plan together to get a serious look at farming. A farm around a garden and a home in the middle. 

Starting off with a 100 square meter patch of land in Cambacay Batuan where Lita’s family owned, Jomar first found a strength at the characteristic clay soil which is ideal for keeping water, something that they can get only after some rains. 

Starting off by developing a fishpond, the young couple earned criticism from family and neighbors. 

“You dig a fishpond in an area that has water problems, that is a problem,” his father in law accordingly told him. 

Clay soil however has great water keeping qualities, both young agriculturists know, so they did not mind the queer looks from neighbors. 

A cutflower and vegetable farmer while young, Jomar’s experience in his home in Danao Panglao was his ace on the sleeve. Cutflower and vegetable sales supplied his school needs in elementary and high school. 

Now in Batuan, far from his birthplace, Jomar and Lita started on a cutflower and a vegetable garden, taking in his experience and heaped it with the science that they learned in school. 

Cutflowers attract bees, and so they ventured into a culture of pollinators. 

Form that idea, their garden became a home to wild stingless bees as pollinators to their vegetable and flower garden. 

“With pollinators, you get 30-40% more of the harvests,” he claimed, knowing too that stingless bees are sometimes decimated by farmers who do not know the insect’s critical roles in flowers and fruiting vegetables. 

“Besides, you can harvest better honey sacs from wild stingless bees,” Jomar who now also sells honey in 250 and 1000 gram tubes proudly confessed. 

In the background, the Balag’s youngest kid along with kids his age, totes a bolo and tucks a cutting along the pathway in the now 4,000 square-meter family farm. 

“We, with Lita, make sure our kids pick on the habit, because all who know how to eat must know how to plant,” he jokes in between the informal interview. 

After the bees come insects: bees, butterfly and even frogs drawn to the ponds that refuse to drain. 

These incidentally also attract birds, and the most notable among them is a pair of the endemic Philippine Frogmouth, now a rare bird sighted in only very few areas in Bohol. 

A frogmouth feeds on grasshoppers, cicadas, crickets and beetles, insects that could only survive in areas where inorganic chemical fertilizers and pesticides are inexistent. 

The good this is that these couple has been regularly nesting in the farm, Lita shared, and pointing to a nestling sitting alone on a nest of downy feathers, its telltale yellow trim on the beak tracing the frogmouths characteristics. 

Anytime soon, the female would sit on the nest, the male has just ended his duty watching the nestling and would start hunting for food. Frogmouths are generally nocturnal, she added. 

The stagnant waters here also offer refuge for the endemic Asian box turtles, and a pair they found in the area is now as much as 500 individuals from hatchlings to mature adults. 

An enclosure houses these box turtles, amphibians at that, with the comforts of a mossy swimming pond and a crawling yard that lets the turtles bask and swim to adjust their body temperatures. 

“Every 10 eggs, I get two which I leave to hatch outside. This is our share for nature’s recovery,” Jomar said. 

With abundant shades, plenty of water ponds and food, it would be no wonder of a hatching would opt to stay, now at home among the organic litter in the farm. 

“Next on the family’s list is breeding a softshell turtle which has more meat that the native box turtles,” he shared as he guided a team touring the farm. 

Jolits Eco Farm also has a family carabao, sheep, goats, pigs, native chicken, turkey, geese and native ducks, all sustained with the organic feeds they harvest from the farm. 

The animal wastes also go to a pile that becomes fertilizer, or mixed with molasses, fruit and vegetable extracts for use within the farm. 

The old fishpond now has golden tilapia: the pond regulates the garden temperature, attracts dragonflies whose nymphs control tilapia fingerlings and wrigglers that can be dengue carrying mosquitoes if not controlled, he explained during the tour. 

Everything here is organic, Jomar points out. 

Near the restroom is a rain water collector which draws mosquitoes away from the restrooms, golden tilapia prowl under the water, eating the wrigglers mosquitoes breed and lotus and aquatic plants float to control the water temperature and make it crystal clear. 

Elsewhere are duckweeds and azolla ponds, these two plants supply the biofeeds the farm needs for their livestock. 

Here, passion fruit, pangyawan vines, blue ternates, a trellis for grapes and other tendrils form a natural canopy, while the pathways winding around the farm are plants in every collector’s dream, Jomar rattles off scientific and English names only the scientific community can get on. 

Calathea, philodendron, caladium, sanseviera, begonias, coleus, hibiscus, orchids, palms and an endless list of ornamental and cutflowers flank the stone pathways. 

Herbs and medicinal plants also interspace the garden, plants placement carefully planned so a pest of one plant can’t attack because a natural plant pesticide is nearby. 

After opening the farm in December 2010 as an integrated diversified organic farm garden, Jolits Eco Farm capped the second place for the district’s Bahay Kubo Food Always in the Home, Herbal Organic Plants Everywhere and Chicken Always Raised In The Yard (FAITH, HOPE, ChARITY) backyard garden contest. 

With the children also actively owning shares in the chores, it has now become a lighter work for the couple who only hires helpers on major farm jobs. 

One takes on the carabao to pasture, another one takes the sheep and goats, one goes to the fowl coop were native chicken, geese, turkey and ducks are kept. 

By 2017, the Balag Family reaped the Suhid sa Mag-uumang Bol-anon Farm Family Category and took it again in 2018. 

That same year, Batuan again picked the Balag family home in a garden as best Balay Batuanon. 

As member of the Kapunungan sa mga Bol-anong Organikong Mag-uuma, the Balag’s share and co-share technologies with visitors interested in organic farming, and as member of the United Small Ruminants Raisers Association, the farm also helps train ruminant livestock farmers. 

With native free-range chicken in the farm as member of the Bohol Native Chicken Growers Association, it was never hard for the farm and the family to be certified as an agriculture learning site. 

The paycheck? 

Jomar Balag, who found that his flower garden is his ace, sells hundreds of sprouted seedlings, grafted saplings and potted plants would only timidly smile. The give-away however is that his neighbors have also displayed potted flower and ornamental plants in their yards, showing that they too now know there is money in ornamental plants. 

The best of all, Jomar said, for years now, the frogmouth has been a constant visitor, the farm itself becoming a nesting site for the rare endemic bird. 

With this, the family, which feels it has made the bird feel safe with them, and the food abundant here, only makes the family stick more to organic technology as chemicals could kill the rare bird. 

And the native turtles. And the fresh water lobster that thrives in a cement pond below the Balag house window. 

Food in here is as fresh as can be: cooked within five minutes after picking from the garden, aromatic herbs garnishing, and the delectable scent of home cooking a Boholano house is famed for, spills into the neighborhood. 

For the Balag kids, play is as fun as grating coconuts for the milk, riding the carabao and waking up to the smell of fresh flowers in the yard, the crow of roosters and the symphony of birds: everything one dreams of a home in a garden farm. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

AFTER SOME DAYS WORK. Jomar and Lita Balag, owners of the Jolits Garden and Eco Farm never wished for anything more than a simple farm life spent with the kids. Their efforts then have made their farm into a garden in a farm where they wake up to the crowing roosters, symphony of birds and the homey scent of flowers, ripe fruits and organic home cooking. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)

‘TB’ killed more 

than COVID-19 

CORTES, Bohol Aug 15 (PIA) –Corona virus disease (COVID) way have killed many Filipinos already, but the figure is way far below the deaths credited to tuberculosis (TB). 

This sums up the gist of the Kapihan sa PIA which tackled the Provincial TB program that was sidelined as communities took COVID seriously. 

Like the dreaded coronavirus disease (COVID), tuberculosis (TB) is highly contagious and may infect anyone unsuspecting. 

Like COVID which takes a sophisticated medical laboratory analysis to confirm the virus’ presence, it would take a good xray and sputum examination in a laboratory to confirm the presence of the mycobacterium causing the disease. 

Like Covid, TB bacteria can be airborne and could infect individuals who are in close proximity to the sick person. 

Unlike Covid which can manifest within 14 days, it may take years before a latent tuberculosis can be manifested in a person. 

Like Covid which has killed thousands of Filipinos, tuberculosis also ranks among the country’s top five killers. 

Unlike Covid, there is already an established treatment against tuberculosis, but not everyone is keen in getting the free treatment. 

Like Covid, one can protect itself from tuberculosis by wearing face masks and by keeping a safe distance enough to be spared from the droplets one spews when coughing or sneezing. 

But then, tuberculosis is among the leading causes of disease and deaths in the country, bared Department of Health nurse from the Regional Office and assigned at the Provincial Health Office, during the recent Kapihan sa PIA aired at DyTR and 92.7 Bee FM. 

Nurse Arnold Bongcac Jr., in fact names tuberculosis and pneumonia in fifth and third among the country’s top disease in morbidity and mortality. 

In fact, information from the Gallares Hospital bared that several of those people treated relative to Covid in Bohol have shown lung infections, telltale signs of the bacterial infection, said Bohol TB Program coordinator and nurse Polizena Rances during the same Kapihan. 

The Kapihan, solely dedicated to commemorate August as the Lung Month, tackled pneumonia and tuberculosis: two diseases that affect the lungs. 

Last year, we had 7,528 cases of tuberculosis but so far, there are only about 3,061 of these cases with the patient coming out for the free treatment, bared Bongcac. 

This also means that there at 4,467 individuals with tuberculosis who are freely going out, maybe innocently riding with you in air-conditioned buses and vans, every cough or sneeze or even when droplets fly, they have the capacity to infect everyone with them riding in the public transportation. 

Most of these people may not know they already are bacteria carriers like Covid, but having cough for more than a couple of days should be a good warning sign, said Rances. 

People have to know that TB can be treated for free, and all it would take is six months of diligently taking the programmatic approach therapy, and that it is okay because once one starts treatment, he would stop from spreading the bacteria, Rances, who heads the Provincial TB Program in line with the National TB program said. 

Still struggling with 40.66% case detection rate for TB, the Provincial Program coordinator bared that there are free mass screening and diagnostic sputum microscopy that one can avail. 

Still battling with beating TB as with the misconceptions people have against the disease, the public health nurse said there is a misplaced stigma that is keeping people from coming out. 

Families may hide their patient, the problem with that is the patient can unwittingly transfer the bacteria and infect those who are not as cautious. (rachiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

KEEPING ONE’S DISTANCE AND MASKS. Health authorities said one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of the bacteria which causes is for everyone to wear mask and to keep his distance, the same measures implemented against COVID, which can also be passed on from salivary droplets. (PIABohol) 

DepED Bohol pleads to LGUS, 

“Employ learning facilitators” 

CORTES Bohol August 15 (PIA) – Faced with the reality that it might take long before the Department of Education (DepED) can allow face-to-face classes, facilitating learners progress in their home-tasked learning sessions has opened up authorities’ eyes on the impossible: how would a teacher be able to check on the individual competencies of learners enough for them to proceed to the next module? 

Over this, DepED Bohol Division through the Assistant Division Superintendent Dr. Casiana Caberte has pleaded to their local government unit partners to extend some more help in hiring ‘learning facilitators,’ who could go around and sit with pupils or students who have been identified as having no one to help them in working out the weekly modules. 

At the Kapihan sa PIA a week ago, Dr. Caberte explained that with students and pupils scattered in different locations, it is impossible for the teacher to visit each one of those who have no parents or siblings to help them in the lessons. 

“Due to work, there are parents who would not have time to sit with the child, as there are also kids who are left to the care of the grandparents with the parents working or are far from home, and there are also siblings that could not properly elucidate on the lessons in the module, admits Dr. Caberte, who knew all this from the Learner Enrolment Survey Form the DepED sent out months ago. 

Moreover, independent surveys also showed that there are parents who are helpless in facilitating the “new lessons,” apart from the fact that they could hardly keep the child focused, that patience are stretched and the study ends in failure. 

Here, enter the Division-proposed locally funded learning facilitators, Dr Caberte starts to explain. 

By learning facilitators, DepED Bohol means those who have finished the Bachelors course in Education but have not been hired yet, they have been trained to do exactly the same tasks needed by the learners who have no one to guide them with the printed modules. 

These people could be hired by the LGUs to help us go to and check on specific students who could not find any help at home in the modules, she pressed on. 

The DepED pleading however is one which they could only propose, knowing how much the LGUs have helped them in the printing of the modules which they distributed to each learner. 

The modules were not part of the DepED budget, and by realigning some funds, they were only able to fund some 25% of the totality of the modules that need to be produced and delivered to the learners every week, she said. 

While Distance Learning Modality keeps students and pupils from the schools as mass gatherings continue to be banned, the blended distance learning modality, the one which the local DepED sees as the most appropriate in most cases, also presents other huge challenges. 

Blended learning means a student will get a weekly printed learning module, its production was not in any DepED allocation. 

At the heels of the rescheduling of the opening of classes, nothing much can change on the problem, observers said. 

With the national government funds bleeding dry now, the DepED can only hope for creative partnerships to deliver effectively the lessons in times of blended distance learning. 

While the rescheduling of classes buying the government some time, the relief in the logistical limitation of the department is not expected to be solved until legislators pass a new appropriation, which might take some time and fiscal backing from the same government. 

Over this, and totally unprepared in the decision to go Distance Learning with the threat of the transmission of the corona virus disease still eminent, this might just be the moment Filipinos can prove that indeed, it would take an entire community to fully educate a child. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

ANOTHER CALL FOR HELP. DepED Bohol’s Dr. Casiana Caberte has pleaded LGU partners once again to help them reach out to each learner in the homes by using Education graduates to help facilitate the learning of a pupil or student who has no one to help in the performance of activities and understanding the printed modules as DepED adopts blended distance learning. This after LGUs have helped DepED in producing the printed modules for every student. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)

Towns Review Integrity 

Mechanism through LoGIC 

CORTES, Bohol, Aug 15 (PIA) – Amidst the pandemic that has almost equalized the ease-of-doing-business playing field, the race to get up and about and spring back in competitiveness now becomes a make or break for local government units who can devise integrity mechanisms that would attract businesses and investors in their localities. 

Last Friday, August 14, Local Government Integrity Circles (LoGIC), a European Union funded project that assists towns to create the brands of service delivery characterized by culture of integrity, gathered its LGU partners for a coaching writeshop on integrity mechanisms, one which was also co facilitated by LGU mentors. 

It may be recalled that LoGIC had project orientations with LGUS who have dreamt of streamlined business processes as a way to attain sustainable integrated development by putting in integrity in their business processes. 

By November of last year, 8 LGUs in Bohol have been visited and oriented by the Logic Team comprised of the Project Team which include the Bohol Investment Promotion Center and the Go Negosyo Centers. 

The towns of San Miguel, Sagbayan, Tubigon, Trinidad, Alicia, Anda, Dimiao and Baclayon became pilots for the project that works more on the development of internal processes in local governance rather than the usual fare of vertical; and horizontal infrastructure for foreign funded projects. 

Since then, the town key leaders and sector representatives sat with government functionaries to draft their integrity mechanisms, these documents then became the focus of Friday’s activity held at the Metrocenter. 

Helping LoGIC team were mentors and coaches from LGU Tubigon and Trinidad, two of Bohol’s acclaimed towns rating high in the National Competitiveness Council’s ratings for LGU economic dynamism, government efficiency and infrastructure. 

Tubigon’s planning officer Engr. Noel Mendaña and Trinidad’s Dr. Qurino Nugal Jr shared about Focused Areas and Mechanism based on their experience with their LGUs. 

Earlier, LoGIC sent in an Integrity Mechanism testing tool called Integrity Self Assessment Tool which allowed all department heads in the locality to respond to a series of questions to pick on areas where the project integrity mechanisms can work on. 

"We visit LGUS and orient the mayors, urge them to bring their department heads participation and enlarge the movement to promote the culture of integrity among LGUs," Project Consultant Robert dela Serna said. 

The move was to make them a part of the mechanism to put in place an environment conducive for business, through good governance and integrity in processes. 

LoGIC sees that many LGUs may have come up with innovations in streamlined business processes, but when a new leader comes out, the innovative practice either dies out or stagnates. 

With the LGU integrity brand making the necessary changes to facilitate ease-of-doing-business, the next challenge would be to sustain the good business environment for investors to locate. 

With an integrity brand, the town’s chances at getting more investors and outside funding becomes easier as LGU's that aim to make it to the Department of Interior and Local Government's Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) will find the integrity processes doing the job for them. 

And with the towns already having their own integrity mechanisms, LoGIC’s multi-sectors approach assures that the new system is tested, fixed and enhances to a more workable efficient and transparent process. 

"We operate on the same framework that once we provide a favorable investment environment, we will have jobs that will generate more income for the LGUS and then elevate the economic status of people," dela Serna said. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

THE LoGIC OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AUDIT. Internal audit expert May Limbaga of the Provincial Government is among the pool of LoGICs experts who shared to LGUs how a good and streamlined fiscal management can attract more for the LGUS. (PIABohol.Logic) 

PILOT TOWNS IN INTEGRITY CIRCLE. LoGIC gathered key officials from 8 pilot towns in Bohol to review their integrity mechanism and retest them according to the desired effect in the town’s ease of doing business and attracting investors. (PIABohol/LoGIC)