THE “ARTESIAN WELLS OF LOVE” PROJECT
[POZO MULA SA PUSO]
THE BEGINNING
Cabiao is a municipality in the province of Nueva Ecija in the cental plains of the Philippines. Despite its location in the so-called “rice bowl” of the country, majority of the 68,382 people in this municipality are subsistence farmers. Most of them [spread out in 23 barangays] look up to the government as the only source of development. Political patronage is so prevalent and a personal connection to a government official is a lifeline that every individual has to nurture.
Sometime in 2009, the barangay of San Vicente entered into a partnership 
with the Community Based Development Program of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines and its partner, the Episcopal Relief and Development. At that time, the community was among the countless villages in the country that suffered the wrath of Typhoon Ondoy and saw its farms and crops laid to waste. The community requested for assistance but rather than availing of relief grant, it loaned out from CBDP the amount of P100,000 for the procurement of seeds and inputs for the rehabilitation of farms. The loan was taken out by the San Vicente Farmers Association, in behalf of its members.
This rehabilitation effort led
to another joint undertaking in the construction of a drainage canal that intended to address the perennial flooding problem in Puroks I and II of the barangay. The original plan was to construct a 300 meter drainage canal that would enable flood waters to flow into the natural waterways. CBDP shall provide the concrete aggregates for the project while the people contribute labor inputs. As a result of the active partnership, however, the local government unit [LGU] contributed the sum of P274, 400.00 or 21% of the total project cost, which resulted in the extension of the original length of the project from 300 to 450 meters.