Happy Marriage (Maligayang Pagsasama) - 1966

[Music] Certain things seem to be made to go together. Kare and bagon or ham and eggs. A happy marriage, one might say. Such a fortunate natural blend on a vast national scale has been the union of two diverse elements. The first element is the eager willingness of individuals in the Philippines to improve their day-today life and of the government of the Philippines to provide the means by which that improvement can be made. The second element is the vast agricultural potential of the United States. One that produces enough to share with others, enough to support the food for peace program for productive purposes and many nations where national development is being achieved through the determined efforts of free peoples. These two, the civic action program and food for [Music] peace, one can call a happy marriage. [Music] Eight civic action centers have been established at our Philippine Navy, Army and Air Force bases and camps from Fort Makisai in Nevesiah to Zambanga Air Base and the naval base on Tawi Tawi. Technicians and leaders trained at the Philippine Land Reform Training Center to teach others for barrier leadership form the coaching staff. The team made up of civic leaders is chosen from those who have the respect of the people with whom they live. Often it may be the barrier captain but it can be anyone teacher, farmer, housewife. The common factor is their potential for community leadership. Leadership exercised often by nothing more than setting an example. In many instances, this example is often enough as it proved to be in this bario where civic pride stimulated by the bario captain who cares made homes and street a better place in which to live with a little work and much pride. Pride spreads by example as do ideas and so many other useful things. This is a way of neatly disposing of water from the kitchen sink into a hole filled with rocks. No unsightly mud puddle here. Or a compost pile that turns waste into the finest kind of organic food for the soil with the help of nature and at no cost but effort. Or a solar evaporator that makes fresh drinking water from salty sea water. A lowcost outlay to begin with, but after that only effort. Yours and the suns both free. An idea well worth exploring if fresh water is a problem. But often the problem to be solved is too big for one individual. It is a genuine community problem. Help is needed to organize and to carry through. It might be a barrier hall to be built, a mark of community distinction, a building of many uses. It might be a barrier recreation center, a task requiring both construction and maintenance. It might be a needed addition to the school. This work takes many hours of community citizen time, but the results are worth it. It might be a small diversion dam irrigating parts land. These are projects requiring the strength of many and the time of many. Time that can be given only when the food for that day is assured. These are samples of happy marriages of civic action and food for peace took place. Another example, this school was more than one kilometer from the main road. This side road was bad. Effort to improve it was clearly needed. But whose effort? Why not student effort? Most of them earn at least a part of their tuition and keep by working out. Why not work on the road? Could this project use food for peace? Officers at the civic action center advised yes. The school take food in place of board and tuition money. food the boys received as bonus for performing a needed community service to a boarding school with several hundred appetites to satisfy every day. Food was money. So with the promise of food, the road was started. But the food was in Manila. How to get it to Tawiti? Civic Action has the answer to that, too. With the cooperation of the United States volunteer agencies, a regular Philippine Navy supply trip to the naval base at Batu Batau was scheduled. They would carry the food supply, more than 80 tons for Zambanga and Tawi Tawi alone. cooking oil, cornmeal, beans, the processed wheat that has come to be known as black rice which was so preferred by many that when traveling they bring along their own supply. All these from the food for peace program add to the better standard of living of many bario families who are willing to give a day's labor for a day's food for the family. And then came the day when the Navy ship arrived, delivering the food for the school's road gang and for the workers of scores of other projects equally productive. The food for the school went by truck to be stored at a safe place until used to feed the students. These boys met their school expenses by their work on the road. They have met their tuition and board and room costs for the school year. The food for peace they received is as good to the school as money to spend for food. And the road was built. A permanent addition to a better community, a better island, a dozen better communities. As the food that encourages self-help projects goes per score of ports by small boats and big ones. For here the sea is the highway. Food to encourage projects that will yield dividends and income to the community long after the last pound of food has been paid to the workers. long after the last panful has been cooked and served. Ideas and actions such as these must come from somewhere. Civic action centers give the knowledge the assistance. Those who attend the civic action centers twoe course acquire the knowledge that they may spread to all who would know. The people of the barios thus acquire the means so that between harvests, between fish catches, they can add to the family food supply while building their community resources. In one recent month, nearly 30,000 Filipino heads of families by their efforts to improve their barriers qualified to receive food for peace. They fed their more than 150,000 dependents. While doing this, they were constructing 141 irrigation projects and diversion dams, working on 155 school buildings, improving 64 roads, some as much as 8 kilometers long, building 45 community halls, water systems, fish puns, reforestation projects, playgrounds, flood control projects. These were some of the 547 results of the Union of Civic Action and Food for Peace. And the good has just begun. Food for encouraging up to 15 million mandays of productive labor can be made available next year if communities come up with beneficial projects. One can indeed predict a long and successful [Music]