Philippine Misereor Partnership Incorporated

The newly created TWG on SUSTAINABILITY had its first meeting last March 12, 2008 at the PMPI Secretariat office in Malate, Manila. Present in the meeting were Sr. Rosanne Mallillin, (she chairs the group), Ms. Marietta Paragas of the Northern Luzon Cluster, Dr. Carmer Benares of Negros Cluster, Ms. Doris Ocampos of DOPIM Cluster, and Fr. Rico Enriquez of Davao Region Cluster.

The group came to the consensus that the initial focus for sustainability should be the institutional sustainability of the partner organizations. It believes that if the partner organizations are sustainable and strong, they would be able to work on their program sustainability and economic sustainability. Based on this premise, the group has proposed to the NCC in its 13th meeting last April 3-4, 2008 how it intends to help the partner organizations in moving towards institutional sustainability. The proposal will be further deliberated on by the NCC in its succeeding meeting.

MOST REV. JULITO B. CORTES, Auxiliary Bishop of Cebu hosted a meeting of the PMPI Central Visayas Cluster and the Cebu Archdiocesan Ministries on April 9, 2008 at the Sto. Rosario Parish, Cebu City. The ministries of the Archdiocese of Cebu that were represented in the meeting were the Commission on Service, C-CIMPEL, Family and Life Apostolate, and the Sto. Rosario Parish Commission on Service.

The main objectives in the meeting were to facilitate a sharing among the Archdiocesan Ministries and the PMPI partner organizations in Central Visayas, and to discuss initial plans for the Central and Eastern Visayas Regional Rural Congress scheduled for May 21-22, 2008.

Dr. Almuth Schauber, Misereor’s Consultant for Urban Development in Asia, arrived in the country to consult partners about the process and content of forthcoming evaluation of the Community Mortgage Program (CMP) as it is being implemented in the county. She attended the meeting of the TWG on Urban Livability and met with Bishop Broderick Pabillo. Together with Mr. Elmar Noe and Ms. Anna Dirksmeier, she met with partner members of Hugpong Dabaw in Davao City as well as with the other member organizations of the Davao Region Cluster of PMPI.

She had a chance to meet with many partners during and after the NCR-Urban Cluster meeting in Pasay City last April 14, 2008, and in a later date, with pain the Visayas, particularly in Cebu City.