Agusan people’s summit adopts grassroots proposals into policies

SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur — A people’s summit highlighted community-driven campaigns for sustainable farming and rural enterprise that were turned into municipal legislation.

The two-day 6th Sibagat People’s Summit was held on Oct. 30-31 in Sibagat, Agusan del Sur, where civil society organizations (CSOs), sectoral leaders, Indigenous Peoples’ representatives, and municipal executives met to integrate grassroots development agendas directly into local governance.

Speaking on behalf of Mayor Dr. Thelma Lamanilao, executive assistant Ruby Laid urged residents and bureaucrats alike to move beyond habitual complaints and assume shared responsibility for the town’s progress.

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Laid recounted the experience of an isolated, road-deprived village where public frustration against the government once ran high. The turning point, she said, arrived not through a top-down mandate, but from an elderly woman at a community assembly who challenged her neighbors to act.

“She didn’t offer complaints; she offered a personal commitment,” Laid said. “She looked at her neighbors and said that if they wanted change, it had to start with them—and she announced she would start simply by cleaning her immediate surroundings.”

Summit facilitator Val Fenis said the same brand of community ownership is driving the success of some local formations now shaping municipal programs.

These include the Nagkahiusang Mag-uumang Organiko sa Sibagat (NAMAO), which led the lobbying that produced the town’s landmark Organic Agriculture Ordinance.

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The group continues to link farm clusters with agricultural extension services, planting materials, and municipal inputs while tying food security to watershed conservation.

“Our members gained access to fruit seedlings, livestock, and support for organic farming practices. Our advocacy for eco-friendly livelihoods bore fruit in the passage of the municipal Organic Agriculture Ordinance,” NAMAO representative Pedro Fenis Jr. said in Cebuano.

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Organizers emphasized that the annual summit ensures grassroots participation extends beyond standard compliance with the Local Government Code, institutionalizing participatory budgeting and bottom-up planning across the municipality./coa