From zero to millions

When Myrna (“Manay Nina”) Folo first embarked on their community enterprise with nine other women neighbors from Barangay Buhatan, Sorsogon City, just over four years ago, they had nothing but dreams to build on. As barangay captain then, she took the challenge of Gina Lopez — later to become environment secretary — to clean up the heavily trash-polluted Buhatan River and make an asset out of it, when Lopez visited in 2014 as guest of the city on the invitation of Mayor Sally Lee.

“River pollution had reduced the fish and prawns that our menfolk would catch to earn a living for their families,” she recounted to our group of weekend tourists in Filipino. “We knew we had to do something, and we knew it was not going to be easy.” Manay Nina’s group started going around their barangay and neighboring Barangay Cabid-An to convince the residents to stop dumping their trash into the river. She also harnessed volunteers from the community fishermen to gather up the river’s floating trash.

For six months, practically all they did was to work on the river cleanup campaign. Even as they saw definite reduction in the river trash, much of it kept floating in from Sorsogon Bay, over which they had no control. They thought of installing nets near the river mouth to catch the bay trash, but it proved difficult and futile. Thus they had to rely mainly on manual gathering and sustaining the campaign to stop trash dumping from the river barangays. They also mobilized the community to rehabilitate the dwindling mangroves and revive the fish population.

Lopez’s Bantay Kalikasan gave them building materials, mostly of bamboo and nipa, to build a structure near the river’s mouth to the bay that could serve as restaurant and rest house. The local men provided bayanihan labor as sweat equity to build it. Their first “cabana” was a covered bamboo river raft fitted atop two bancas, which was to carry visitors over the 3.7-kilometer river stretch from the highway bridge to the restaurant. The idea was to offer guests a river cruise that would culminate in a meal at their “resto.” At daytime, the 45-minute river cruise would give guests a view of their rehabilitated river with its various interesting wildlife, including migratory birds and iguana. At night, fireflies hovering around trees along the river stretch would be the primary attraction.

By mid-2015, the key elements of their river cruise tour were coming into place. The group began to worry: “What if no one comes to take our cruise?” Ever the optimist, Manay Nina egged them on, declaring: “We will be our own first customers. Our own families can take turns going on the cruise and having a picnic at our resto!” They officially opened in October 2015, initially relying on word-of-mouth to gain paying visitors—and they soon found their fears to be unfounded.

With business picking up, they registered with the Cooperative Development Authority in April 2016 as the Buhatan River Eco Adventure Service Cooperative, earning a million pesos that year. This more than doubled the following year, and visitors continue to grow in number as word goes around, now aided by a Facebook page. From the original 10 women, the cooperative now has 75 members. Their fleet has grown to seven cabanas, each floating on 16 steel drums and able to carry about a dozen passengers. They have since planted 15,000 mangroves and seeded the river with 20,000 tilapia fingerlings.

Current barangay captain Edwin Divina works closely with Manay Nina, who continues to devote her time to the highly successful venture. An active Bantay Dagat group maintains the river’s cleanliness, as the residents find the tourism enterprise even more lucrative than their original livelihoods of fishing, which they continue to engage in. And they have yet to fully tap the opportunities from ancillary businesses like souvenirs.

Just over four years ago, Manay Nina and her group started with nothing. “Ngayon, marami na kaming pera (now we have a lot of money),” Manay Nina told our group with a wink—a living testament to what dreams, determination and cooperativism can do to uplift lives, bring communities together, and save the environment.

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