Sustaining the Beauty of Garcia Hernandez

    Garcia Hernandez is a booming town lying at the southern coast of Bohol. It is 53 kilometers away from Tagbilaran City and is blessed by natural and man-made destinations, like, the Seventh Heaven Caves, Tambuko Cave, and the Garcia Hernandez Roman Catholic Church.

    Over the past three years, the Municipality of Garcia Hernandez adopted a Solid Waste Management Program, which integrates an Environmental Management System. This program has been protecting the coastal areas of Garcia Hernandez and has sustained the coastal areas’ biological resources as well as its vital ecosystem. This allowed small fishing communities to continue making a living in the coastal areas.

Improvements were very much felt in the Municipality of Garcia Hernandez, however, much work is still to be done. The Municipal Planning and Development Office held hands with the Bohol Integrated Development Foundation (BIDEF) to set out and discover the challenges ahead in further protecting the coastal areas of Garcia Hernandez.

    BIDEF in Garcia Hernandez has been implementing the Partnership in Advocacy for Sustainable Objectives (PASEO) Project for more than two years now. With the goal to establish the Environmental Management System (EMS) of the said municipality, it has identified some problems in the implementation of its Solid Waste Management Program. BIDEF, then, advised and assisted the Municipal Planning and Development Office to prioritize this issue in order to improve its program.

    Re/orientation activities on Solid Waste Management were organized with Engr. Rodrigo Galendez, the Municipal Planning and Development Officer of Garcia-Hernandez, taking lead in the activity. These re/orientations on Solid Waste Management gathered the elected and appointed officials, Barangay Day Care Workers, Barangay Health Workers, Barangay Tanods and People’s Organization leaders to ensure that Solid Waste Management is very much comprehended at the barangay level. These activities were scheduled during the evenings to encourage full participation. Two straight weeks were allotted to undertake the activities that covered all the eleven coastal and one upland barangays of Garcia - Hernandez. 

    Some participants were oriented, while some were re-oriented on the importance of Solid Waste Management.  Issues and problems were also raised during the activities that would further strengthen the implementation of the Solid Waste Management Program. Surprisingly, the most common problem identified was the community members’ lack of knowledge on proper waste management, including lack of program support.  The activities also took the opportunity to draw out suggestions on how to solve these problems. The participants’ comments and suggestions were properly documented and will be used as basis to review their Solid Waste Management Program and create their ten-year Municipal Solid Waste Management Plan.

    In order to ensure that these orientations will not go to waste, barangay assemblies are slated to inform the people about the changes on the Municipality’s Solid Waste Management Program and to once again ask for their support and cooperation to make the Garcia-Hernandez a booming and a blooming town of Bohol.
 
For inquiries, please contact:
Elrond Pido
IEC Specialist- PASEO Project
Tel.: (038) 501-7337
E-mail: bidef_bohol@yahoo.com