ANICETA C. BALTAR (Philippines)


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Ms.Aniceta C. Baltar was born in a poor family in Langiden, Abra, Philippines.  Her mother who graduated in college as a teacher was a catechist (Catholic religion teacher) and her father worked for some years as Chief of Police,was involved in a case but was acquitted, and when he was asked to go back to service, he opted to just resign and became a fisherman to support his family.  Aniceta or Annie (her nickname) is second of five children.

 

Annie has been a consistent honor student in school from elementary to post-graduate studies.  In elementary she graduated as salutatorian; in high school as Honorable Mention; in College as Cum Laude; and her thesis in post-graduate course Master in Development Management was With Distinction.

 

She first had her experience of violence  while waiting for her fellow NAMFREL volunteers after the  snap presidential election of 1986. Many of them were crying. Others looked very angry A few were afraid. It was because the ballot boxes which they were bringing to the COMELEC Office were snatched by armed men. Annie was boiling mad but kept it to herself as she was not sure whether she will be able to contain the  bursts of anger then welling in the hearts of her fellow NAMFREL volunteers. She could only pacify her fellow volunteers by her soothing words.

 

The above experience served as an impetus for reflection for action. Unless enlightened and organized, the NAMFREL volunteers thought the Abrenios will always be marginalized, at the mercy of the  powerful

 

When the snap presidential election was over, the NAMFREL volunteers of Abra organized the  Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government to work for our vision of a peaceful  and developed Abra Province. Their chance came when  the new dispensation under President Cory Aquino  launched its pump priming program called Community Employment and Development Program (CEDP) which called for civil society’s participation to monitor the implementation of the newly launched government program. CCAGG employed the strategy of community organizing  and training on monitoring and evaluation of government projects to rally communities to monitor  the CEDP for which Annie Baltar and other CCAGG colleagues  worked relentlessly.

 

The trained communities took on new lens of looking at their engagement in monitoring of government projects as their citizens’ participation in governance. It was their commitment to this newly found engagement that unravelled mismanagement in project implementation and for which the bureaucrats of the district office of DPWH were punished.

 

The CCAGG  has since then been engaged for peace and development through citizenship  building  and monitoring of government projects and programs.