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HON. CLARA “FEMS” ESPIRITU-REYES Vice Governor, Province of Palawan

Vice Governor Clara “Fems” Espiritu-Reyes is the first lady vice governor of the province of Palawan. On her first entry to politics as newbie in 2010 elections, she got the highest votes among all provincial candidates. Her landslide win was attributed on her “nagmamahal” image.

Vice Gov. Reyes is highly respected and well-loved by Palaweños since her husband Joel T. Reyes won as board member in 1988, and then vice governor for three terms (1992, 1995 and 1998) and governor for another three terms (2001, 2004 and 2007) in Palawan province. As wife and first lady to her seasoned politician-husband, Fems (as her constituents fondly call her) had an early grasp of local condition and realistic way of life of the Palaweños.

She visited poor residents in far-flung island barangays where no politician has set foot before.

After winning as vice governor and presiding officer of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan ng Palawan, she called for unity of all elected provincial officials. On a very rare instance in Philippine politics, the members of the highest legislative body in Palawan headed by the vice governor were discharging their duties and responsibilities in unity – there was no majority group and no minority group.

Fems manifested her interest to perpetually continue and develop sustainably the LAKBAYAN (Lakbay-Bayanihan) Program which was essentially the “brain child” of former Governor Reyes. Through an executive order, Governor Abraham Kahlil B. Mitra directed Fems to manage and administer LAKBAYAN Program in order to give way for adequate support to strengthen and sustain the delivery of basic social services to the constituents.

LAKBAYAN provides basic social, health and other related services to constituents in far-flung areas. It also establishes and strengthens the network of municipalities and barangays to collectively address health related concerns. Free health services like medical, dental, minor operation, circumcision, feeding and eye care are given to the Palaweños provincewide.

Fems has a heart for her ka-tropa – the housewives. Yahoo news reported that given an option, Fems believes most housewives in her province would choose to go into business.

So she started a livelihood project for mothers in each of the 367 barangays in Palawan. The livelihood projects aims to empower local housewives by giving them financial independence.

“Mothers are good at budgeting for the house and that is one skill that they can use for starting and maneging small businesses,” she said.

Since last year, over 90 percent of the total number of barangays have availed of the P10,000 seed money offered to housewives so they can start their own business.

“Only 20 or 30 barangays have not availed of the seed capital because they live in the remotest parts of the province. But before the end of the year, we aim to reach them,” added Fems.

The seed capital is given to groups of 25 women or housewives in each barangay but most opt to pool their money together to have a bigger budget to start businesses, including handicrafts, food processing and product distribution or reselling.

Before giving the seed capital, the housewives undergo training on basic accounting and product marketing. “This allows them to gain better business sense and achieve success,” she said.

A year after the project, Fems said most of the local businesses have doubled their capital. She plans to implement further training for the housewives on how to expand their businesses further and discuss new trends on marketing and branding.

Fems announced in Coron, Palawan that she will give reward to housewives whose incomes have doubled the amount of their seed capital. Some group of women have even increased their capital seven times. Notable success stories were documented in the municipalities of Quezon, Agutaya, Cuyo, Roxas and Taytay.

Esther Aguilar, president of MOMFEMS or Movement of Mothers for the Empowerment of Marginalized Sector in Banuang Daan, Coron said they will expand their livelihood opportunities to include grains retailing and mat making.

“Fems knows what people like us need. Fems really shows he cares,” Aguilar said.