CRUSHED mountain stones are sold at P8 per can. [photo by Avigail Olarte]

ANOTHER HYDRO project, however, is squeezing the town's coffers dry. For the last three years, Sevilla had been giving P3 million of its P3.7 million development fund as equity to the Sevilla Mini-Hydro Project at the Upper Loboc River. The project is a joint venture worth P313 million and will supply water to five towns. Sevilla stands to earn 15 percent of the expected P20 million annual income.

Perin says their payments will end this year, and after that, enough funds from its 20 percent-development fund will again be channeled for its other equally important projects: infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, environment, and social services (in that order of priority).

"That's why we've been asking funding from politicians elsewhere," Perin says, stressing that Bohol Governor Erico Aumentado had been helping Sevilla a lot, mainly through infrastructure projects.

The provincial government is bent on reducing poverty in Bohol. The capitol was frightened into action some four years ago — not by the NPA, but the alarming poverty incidence in the province — and thus aimed to reduce Bohol's number of poor people families to 28.9 percent by 2012. Today, the province has a poverty incidence of only 29.2 percent, which means the capitol may yet reach its target.

The Bohol government reports that addressing poverty by infusing development assistance in conflict-affected places has helped weaken the armed insurgency. In its 2005 Galing Pook Award for its trailblazing program on poverty, peace and development, 16,928 new jobs were said to have been created, child malnutrition was addressed, and access to sanitary toilets, potable water sources, and education increased. Through this program, only one of the four fronts of the CPP-NPA reportedly remained in 2005.

	MAGSAYSAY mother and child [photo by Avigail Olarte]

Yet it seems unlikely that the residents of Magsaysay have been aware of such efforts, busy as they were dodging bullets and leaving their homes more than a decade ago. But for those who have come back, the relative peace is the biggest improvement in their barangay.

Arturo Linguis, who had migrated to Cavite where he worked as a tricycle driver, made it a point to return to Magsaysay once he got married to Delia, a Caviteña seamstress. Now Arturo saves what he can in selling charcoal and firewood, and sometimes, corn.

Each day, his family — together with his 60-year-old mother and four-year-old son — eats the malunggay and kalabasa (squash) he grows, and corn mixed with some rice. Once a month, if they could afford it, they buy fish (at P80 per kilo) and meat.

Arturo says that in his village, one at least doesn't have to worry where to get the meal the next day, unlike those who live on the fringes of poverty in Metro Manila. "Kahit wala kang pera, may kinakain ka (Even if you don't have money, you can eat)," he says, almost too defensively.

	DELIA Linguis, a seamstress from Cavite, prefers life in Magsaysay to the city. [photo by Avigail Olarte]

"Mas maganda dito. Presko ang hangin, sariwa ang pagkain (It's better here. The air is fresh, as is the food)," Delia says. She adds, "Walang gulo dito (It's peaceful here)" — seemingly oblivious to the soldier fetching water nearby.

Their neighbor, Felipe Sumadila, a Sevillahanon who grew up in Magsaysay, agrees. He says it has been 11 years since he last saw an NPA guerrilla in the area, even though in 2005, the 78th Infantry Battalion found M-16 rifles and ammunitions in an NPA camp in Bayawahan, which is just next door to Magsaysay.

Arturo and Delia hope Magsaysay would someday show improvement, but even now they believe it is the best place to raise their son. They would probably have no quarrel there with Felipe, who raised seven sons here and saw four of them finish college elsewhere. But his boys have long left the barangay, even though he keeps hoping they would one day come back and tend to their lands again.

"Sinasabi ko, maganda ang kinabukasan ng mga tao dito (I keep saying, there's a bright future right here)," he says. But somehow his words are betrayed by the fear and sadness in his eyes.