Immediately after the election of mid-1992, the government
of this fifth-class municipality held a three-day strategic
assessment. The participants, who included all barangay captains,
NGOs, POs, cooperatives, and religious organizations as well as
representatives of the business sector and national government agencies,
felt that their development strategy had to be comprehensive to
address the three main problems of poverty, powerlessness,
and inaccessibility of basic services.
The integrated area development program initiated at that
meeting has guided Irosin’s government since then. Named “Laban
para sa Progresibong Irosin (LPI),” this program has three simultaneous
strategies: Livelihood Promotion, People Empowerment, and Improvement
of Basic Services. Under its livelihood component, the government has
stopped jueteng, placed a partial ban on logging, provided loans to
agricultural cooperatives for rice mills, abaca making, and coconut
processing, and arranged the transfer of nearly 500 hectares to farmer
beneficiaries under the agrarian reform program. As such, the citizenry
declared the entire municipality and Agrarian Reform Community.
Irosin’s people empowerment has been manifested by declaring the
town a peace zone, establishing a bank run by and for cooperatives,
constructing building to house the bank, POs and NGOs, and making the
local special bodies highly participatory. Irosin has improved basic
services, particularly the provision of health and Grameen Bank-style
loans to the poor. Malnutrition has decreased and the municipality was
cited as having the best immunization program in Bicol. Key to the
municipal government’s success has been the building of consensus
and cooperation among POs, NGOs, national line agencies, and LGUs
every step of the way.
