Danao sets good example for other Bohol towns

Danao is a 5th class municipality in Region VII, specifically Bohol province, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 17,716 people.

This story from the business section of Philippine Inquirer extols upon the efforts of a man and a foreign organization to raise the living standards and improve the life of the locals of this town.

Turnaround time for Danao, Bohol
By Elizabeth Lolarga, 5/16/09 Phil. daily Inquirer

WHEN ASISCLO “Boy” Gonzaga, a farmer’s son, left Magtangtang, Danao, Bohol, to study in the big city, it was a sleepy rural agricultural town.

Decades later, he returned to Magtangtang a successful engineer and electric power distributor, and he was aghast to see that the barangay (village) of his childhood had remained the same, as did the people’s values.

His wife Natividad said: “The thinking then was, have as many children as you can. That way, you can send some of your daughters to Manila as maids, and they can remit money back to you.”

Social worker Dahlia N. Montecina, who was assigned to Danao after graduating from St. Theresa’s College in Cebu City, said that when she first entered the town in 2004, the sights that greeted her were of men playing tong-its (a card game) or mahjong, men drinking and idle women gossiping by the roadside.

Fortunately, those scenes are slowly disappearing, mainly due to the setting up of the Jose L. Gonzaga Farmers’ Foundation Inc. (JLGFFI) and the entry of the Australia Business Volunteers (ABV), a nongovernment, nonprofit international development agency with 5,000 assignments done in 15 countries.

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