IBON Foundation
Encyclopedia
Ibon Foundation is a non-stock non-profit research-education-information development institution with programs in research education-information and advocacy
. It provides socio-economic research and analysis on people's issues to various sectors primarily to grassroots organizations. It aims to contribute to people's empowerment
through education and advocacy support. It is also engaged in expansive international solidarity work.
in the Philippines
. Resistance to state attacks on people's rights
intensified, there was an urgent need for more information on socio-economic issues.
It was against this backdrop that IBON was founded in 1978, six years after the declaration of Martial Law. Its pioneers were Sr. Soledad Perpiñan who acted as editor and chief coordinator; Sally Bulatao who served as main researcher and later as finance officer; and Antonio Tujan who after coming out of prison as a political detainee became graphic artist and circulations manager.
IBON came out with the independent fact sheet, IBON Facts and Figures to provide readers with a quick scan on vital facts of important national and local issues. From an initial 200 copies, popular response triggered the printing of another 2,000 copies of the first issue.
The first IBON Facts and Figures was produced using a borrowed mimeograph machine
. IBON first operated in a Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS) Welcome House community in Zamora St., Pandacan. Volunteers from the urban poor community provided stick drawings while some economists and students were asked for written contributions or help with drafting issues. Organized sectors such as trade unions began requesting for issue-specific fact sheets and industry primers. Public support ushered the institution into fully organizing and professionalizing its services.
From 1978-1980, IBON Facts and Figures became an 8-page thematic publication
which became a source of data for researchers, speakers, writers and seminar facilitators. Its research featured political-economic realities and the relationship between local and international socio-economic issues.
By the 1980s, IBON had become a full-fledged non-government institution.
1980s. IBON established the IBON Databank in 1982 to provide socio-economic data to researchers, policy-makers, educators, NGOs and people’s organizations. The Ekonokomiks was also launched in 1984 as a regular publication for the grassroots.
IBON went through a rocky period of regularizing its services and departments. After what it described as a lull in providing cutting-edge policy researches “and advancing the public debate through a clear analysis on major issues such as agrarian reform, national industrialization and liberalization”, IBON reorganized and “embarked on a long-term research agenda towards research development on national industrialization.”
1990s. IBON devised a self-sufficiency
program through cross-subsidies between revenue-generating services, subsidized services, maximization of resources, and institutional efficiency and professionalism. Continuing self-evaluation and feedback from friends, clients and allies helped IBON to reorganize its programs and services.
The Databank and Research Center was expanded. It conducted in-depth researches and advocacy studies, and it aimed to improve the quality of its books and publications. Sectoral service desks for workers, peasants, women, indigeneous people and the environment were also developed.
IBON began conducting quarterly surveys
on a National Capital Region-wide and then on a nationwide basis. From the Seminars Program the People's Education and Research Center (PERC) was organized in 1997. The Institute of Political Economy (IPE) was also set up to serve as an independent research-education body producing journals on theoretical research and short training courses on political economy.
IBON's Media Center stemmed from various media support activities such as IBON Features which presented social issues to the general public. IBON sa Himpapawid was a weekly canned radio program that also aimed to promote socio-economic consciousness to a wider audience. IBON Video is a full-service production and post-production facility and a video library that includes IBON-produced educational video-aids and documentary films.
The IBON Partnership for Education Development (IPED) was established. By 1998 the IPED expanded IBON's services to partner schools nationwide carrying the banner of 'transformative education' (TE).
During this decade, the institution also expanded its international networking and advocacy support, along with its services to Visayas and Mindanao by setting up regional offices in Cebu and Davao.
The 21st century. IBON further developed its thrusts of advocating people’s issues and supporting the capacity building
of people’s organizations in research, education, information and advocacy work.
The institution consolidated its advocacy-research orientation by ensuring that its research and publications would cover the most urgent issues of the day, and by expanding its sustained information support and awareness raising. It also revitalized its capacity building efforts by offering a wide-range of advocacy support services including seminars and trainings, information network management, documentation and others for both sectoral and regional people’s organizations.
Popular education materials and training modules have been systematized. The IBON Birdtalk, a semi-annual briefing on socio-economic and political assessment and trends, became a regular event. The institution also holds the Usapang IBON, a grassroots version of the Birdtalk to contribute to the communities' and sectors' campaigns.
The IPED has more than 200 partner schools nationwide. It came up with a TE-based critique of the 2002 Revised Basic Education Curriculum of the Philippine government. It provided lectures to teachers and administrators on the implementaion of an integrative and context-based learning process. IPED was instrumental in establishing the Educators Forum for Development (EFD) for the development of cooperation and fellowship among educators towards a relevant and nationalist education. It also organizes the annual National Educators' Conference and provided seminars to schools.
IBON also became an international publisher through networking with international outfits such as ZED Books and Global Outlook. Its catalog was widened to make Philippine books available internationally and for alternative international publications to be accessible locally.
Within this decade IBON International was established and expanded from providing services and contributing to building support to solidifying its role in setting-up and sustaining international networks and campaigns. It also linked global initiatives to local campaigns and advocacies.
2006. IBON transferred from its Old Sta. Mesa office to its own office building, the IBON Center in Quezon City. The building houses all of the institution's programs and services.
The IBON Databank and Research Center is a core program that provides information and analysis on various socio-economic issues for advocacy support, education, policy-making, development planning and implementation for non-government organizations, people's organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and individuals. Research is the core of its programs with the end-view of disseminating the information in various popular forms especially, but not only, for advocacy purposes.
The institution's research agenda was developed to help provide alternative solutions to problems in production, livelihood and services delivered at the community level. There are extensive industry and agrarian studies, researchers on transnational corporations and agribusinesses, comparative studies on different economies, resource profiles of Philippine regions, and studies on the impact of these socio-economic conditions on the social sectors.
There are also community-based people's action research initiatives on production, economic upliftment and advocacy. IBON uses participatory methodology in research and constantly attempts to democratize the research process through community-based people's action research.
The Databank and Research Center also manages the quarterly IBON Surveys through which it gathers data on people's economic conditions and opinions on various issues.
IBON's People's Education Resource Center (PERC), formerly the Seminars Program, provides comprehensive services in non-formal education especially to grassroots sectors. It produces popular education materials and audio-visual aids on socio-economic and other current issues, as well as training modules on skills training and leadership formation.
The IBON Partnership in Education for Development (IPED) is an alternative center for formal education and aims to promote transformative education through its partnership with schools. This includes teacher training, textbook development and supplementary educational materials for the elementary and secondary levels.
IBON International provides research and education and advocacy support to people's movements abroad and for grassroots empowerment, as well as links these to international initiatives and networks.
To implement its centers and programs, IBON is organized into three administrative sections, seven departments and a printing press.
AidWatch Philippines – a broad national network of grassroots-based and -oriented NGOs working on official development assistance (ODA) issues in the country. It aims to bring together and deepen relationships among the widest possible range of organizations for collaboration between NGOs on aid-related issues and concerns. It also looks forward to constructive engagement with official government and donor agencies on the basis of fundamental development principles.
Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) – established in 1998 as a result of networking among research organizations and NGOs in Asia after a number of conferences in 1997, its objective is to channel and focus NGO research efforts towards supporting information, education and advocacy needs of grassroots organizations.
Better Aid – an international network aiming for aid effectiveness
Buy Pinoy Build Pinoy– a venue for Filipino producers and consumers to work together in building a world-class, pro-Filipino economy. With the slogan “Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy”, it aims to give Filipino producers the means and opportunity to excel in local and foreign markets while encouraging Filipino consumers to patronize locally-produced goods and services.
No Deal! Movement Against Unequal Economic Agreements - a coalition of organizations and individuals opposed to unequal economic agreements. It stands for democratic governance, economic sovereignty and building the national economy and advocates for economic relations based on equality and mutual benefit.
Pagbabago! People's Movement for Change– a broad-based national movement for the people to make their voices heard. It fosters “new politics” meaning government from below; advocates the supervision of leadership by a politically-aware and empowerd people, encourages support for leaders with a track record of being pro-people, pro-Filipino, honest and morally upright, and calls for a government that relies on the continuing consent and support of the governed rarther than coercive means to maintain itself in power.
Our World is Not For Sale (OWINFS) – a worldwide network of organizations, activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment.
People's Movement on Climate Change (PMCC) – a global campaign that aims to provide a venue for the grassroots, especially from the South - who are the worst-affected and yet the least empowered to adapt to climate change - to participate in the process of drawing up a post-2012 climate change framework.
People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)- a growing network of various grassroots groups of small food producers particularly of peasant-farmer organizations and their support NGOs, working towards a People's Convention on Food Sovereignty.
Philippines Transparency and Accountability Council (PTAC, an Independent People's Council) – a gathering of non-partisan individuals, groups and sectors opposed to corruption.
RESIST! – an international campaign to draw the broadest aggregate of people around the world opposed to neoliberal globalization and war.
The Reality of Aid -- the only major north/south international non-governmental collaboration focusing exclusively on analysis and lobbying for poverty eradication policies and practices in the international aid regime.
Water for the People Network – a campaign involving research, propaganda and education, people’s struggles and direct action, legislation and legal struggles, local and international networking, aimed at opposing moves by government, multilateral funding institutions and big local and transnational corporations to privatize water resources, systems and utilities and amass profits at the expense of the people
IBON also actively participates in the following networks: Consumer International, World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), and Commission Number 2 of the International League of People's Struggles (ILPS).
Advocacy
Advocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an...
. It provides socio-economic research and analysis on people's issues to various sectors primarily to grassroots organizations. It aims to contribute to people's empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
through education and advocacy support. It is also engaged in expansive international solidarity work.
History
1970s. The early 70s was rife with information control and civil rights violations after the Marcos dictatorship declared Martial LawMartial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. Resistance to state attacks on people's rights
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
intensified, there was an urgent need for more information on socio-economic issues.
It was against this backdrop that IBON was founded in 1978, six years after the declaration of Martial Law. Its pioneers were Sr. Soledad Perpiñan who acted as editor and chief coordinator; Sally Bulatao who served as main researcher and later as finance officer; and Antonio Tujan who after coming out of prison as a political detainee became graphic artist and circulations manager.
IBON came out with the independent fact sheet, IBON Facts and Figures to provide readers with a quick scan on vital facts of important national and local issues. From an initial 200 copies, popular response triggered the printing of another 2,000 copies of the first issue.
The first IBON Facts and Figures was produced using a borrowed mimeograph machine
Mimeograph machine
The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine is a low-cost printing press that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper....
. IBON first operated in a Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS) Welcome House community in Zamora St., Pandacan. Volunteers from the urban poor community provided stick drawings while some economists and students were asked for written contributions or help with drafting issues. Organized sectors such as trade unions began requesting for issue-specific fact sheets and industry primers. Public support ushered the institution into fully organizing and professionalizing its services.
From 1978-1980, IBON Facts and Figures became an 8-page thematic publication
Publication
To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...
which became a source of data for researchers, speakers, writers and seminar facilitators. Its research featured political-economic realities and the relationship between local and international socio-economic issues.
By the 1980s, IBON had become a full-fledged non-government institution.
1980s. IBON established the IBON Databank in 1982 to provide socio-economic data to researchers, policy-makers, educators, NGOs and people’s organizations. The Ekonokomiks was also launched in 1984 as a regular publication for the grassroots.
IBON went through a rocky period of regularizing its services and departments. After what it described as a lull in providing cutting-edge policy researches “and advancing the public debate through a clear analysis on major issues such as agrarian reform, national industrialization and liberalization”, IBON reorganized and “embarked on a long-term research agenda towards research development on national industrialization.”
1990s. IBON devised a self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
program through cross-subsidies between revenue-generating services, subsidized services, maximization of resources, and institutional efficiency and professionalism. Continuing self-evaluation and feedback from friends, clients and allies helped IBON to reorganize its programs and services.
The Databank and Research Center was expanded. It conducted in-depth researches and advocacy studies, and it aimed to improve the quality of its books and publications. Sectoral service desks for workers, peasants, women, indigeneous people and the environment were also developed.
IBON began conducting quarterly surveys
Statistical survey
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
on a National Capital Region-wide and then on a nationwide basis. From the Seminars Program the People's Education and Research Center (PERC) was organized in 1997. The Institute of Political Economy (IPE) was also set up to serve as an independent research-education body producing journals on theoretical research and short training courses on political economy.
IBON's Media Center stemmed from various media support activities such as IBON Features which presented social issues to the general public. IBON sa Himpapawid was a weekly canned radio program that also aimed to promote socio-economic consciousness to a wider audience. IBON Video is a full-service production and post-production facility and a video library that includes IBON-produced educational video-aids and documentary films.
The IBON Partnership for Education Development (IPED) was established. By 1998 the IPED expanded IBON's services to partner schools nationwide carrying the banner of 'transformative education' (TE).
During this decade, the institution also expanded its international networking and advocacy support, along with its services to Visayas and Mindanao by setting up regional offices in Cebu and Davao.
The 21st century. IBON further developed its thrusts of advocating people’s issues and supporting the capacity building
Capacity building
Capacity building also referred to as capacity development is a conceptual approach to development that focuses on understanding the obstacles that inhibit people, governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations from realizing their developmental goals while enhancing...
of people’s organizations in research, education, information and advocacy work.
The institution consolidated its advocacy-research orientation by ensuring that its research and publications would cover the most urgent issues of the day, and by expanding its sustained information support and awareness raising. It also revitalized its capacity building efforts by offering a wide-range of advocacy support services including seminars and trainings, information network management, documentation and others for both sectoral and regional people’s organizations.
Popular education materials and training modules have been systematized. The IBON Birdtalk, a semi-annual briefing on socio-economic and political assessment and trends, became a regular event. The institution also holds the Usapang IBON, a grassroots version of the Birdtalk to contribute to the communities' and sectors' campaigns.
The IPED has more than 200 partner schools nationwide. It came up with a TE-based critique of the 2002 Revised Basic Education Curriculum of the Philippine government. It provided lectures to teachers and administrators on the implementaion of an integrative and context-based learning process. IPED was instrumental in establishing the Educators Forum for Development (EFD) for the development of cooperation and fellowship among educators towards a relevant and nationalist education. It also organizes the annual National Educators' Conference and provided seminars to schools.
IBON also became an international publisher through networking with international outfits such as ZED Books and Global Outlook. Its catalog was widened to make Philippine books available internationally and for alternative international publications to be accessible locally.
Within this decade IBON International was established and expanded from providing services and contributing to building support to solidifying its role in setting-up and sustaining international networks and campaigns. It also linked global initiatives to local campaigns and advocacies.
2006. IBON transferred from its Old Sta. Mesa office to its own office building, the IBON Center in Quezon City. The building houses all of the institution's programs and services.
Main programs and centers
IBON is a multi-center, multi-program institution with research,education and information as its main focus.The IBON Databank and Research Center is a core program that provides information and analysis on various socio-economic issues for advocacy support, education, policy-making, development planning and implementation for non-government organizations, people's organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and individuals. Research is the core of its programs with the end-view of disseminating the information in various popular forms especially, but not only, for advocacy purposes.
The institution's research agenda was developed to help provide alternative solutions to problems in production, livelihood and services delivered at the community level. There are extensive industry and agrarian studies, researchers on transnational corporations and agribusinesses, comparative studies on different economies, resource profiles of Philippine regions, and studies on the impact of these socio-economic conditions on the social sectors.
There are also community-based people's action research initiatives on production, economic upliftment and advocacy. IBON uses participatory methodology in research and constantly attempts to democratize the research process through community-based people's action research.
The Databank and Research Center also manages the quarterly IBON Surveys through which it gathers data on people's economic conditions and opinions on various issues.
IBON's People's Education Resource Center (PERC), formerly the Seminars Program, provides comprehensive services in non-formal education especially to grassroots sectors. It produces popular education materials and audio-visual aids on socio-economic and other current issues, as well as training modules on skills training and leadership formation.
The IBON Partnership in Education for Development (IPED) is an alternative center for formal education and aims to promote transformative education through its partnership with schools. This includes teacher training, textbook development and supplementary educational materials for the elementary and secondary levels.
IBON International provides research and education and advocacy support to people's movements abroad and for grassroots empowerment, as well as links these to international initiatives and networks.
To implement its centers and programs, IBON is organized into three administrative sections, seven departments and a printing press.
Networks
IBON is an active participant in a number of networks tackling various people's issues both on the local and international arena:AidWatch Philippines – a broad national network of grassroots-based and -oriented NGOs working on official development assistance (ODA) issues in the country. It aims to bring together and deepen relationships among the widest possible range of organizations for collaboration between NGOs on aid-related issues and concerns. It also looks forward to constructive engagement with official government and donor agencies on the basis of fundamental development principles.
Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) – established in 1998 as a result of networking among research organizations and NGOs in Asia after a number of conferences in 1997, its objective is to channel and focus NGO research efforts towards supporting information, education and advocacy needs of grassroots organizations.
Better Aid – an international network aiming for aid effectiveness
Buy Pinoy Build Pinoy– a venue for Filipino producers and consumers to work together in building a world-class, pro-Filipino economy. With the slogan “Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy”, it aims to give Filipino producers the means and opportunity to excel in local and foreign markets while encouraging Filipino consumers to patronize locally-produced goods and services.
No Deal! Movement Against Unequal Economic Agreements - a coalition of organizations and individuals opposed to unequal economic agreements. It stands for democratic governance, economic sovereignty and building the national economy and advocates for economic relations based on equality and mutual benefit.
Pagbabago! People's Movement for Change– a broad-based national movement for the people to make their voices heard. It fosters “new politics” meaning government from below; advocates the supervision of leadership by a politically-aware and empowerd people, encourages support for leaders with a track record of being pro-people, pro-Filipino, honest and morally upright, and calls for a government that relies on the continuing consent and support of the governed rarther than coercive means to maintain itself in power.
Our World is Not For Sale (OWINFS) – a worldwide network of organizations, activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment.
People's Movement on Climate Change (PMCC) – a global campaign that aims to provide a venue for the grassroots, especially from the South - who are the worst-affected and yet the least empowered to adapt to climate change - to participate in the process of drawing up a post-2012 climate change framework.
People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)- a growing network of various grassroots groups of small food producers particularly of peasant-farmer organizations and their support NGOs, working towards a People's Convention on Food Sovereignty.
Philippines Transparency and Accountability Council (PTAC, an Independent People's Council) – a gathering of non-partisan individuals, groups and sectors opposed to corruption.
RESIST! – an international campaign to draw the broadest aggregate of people around the world opposed to neoliberal globalization and war.
The Reality of Aid -- the only major north/south international non-governmental collaboration focusing exclusively on analysis and lobbying for poverty eradication policies and practices in the international aid regime.
Water for the People Network – a campaign involving research, propaganda and education, people’s struggles and direct action, legislation and legal struggles, local and international networking, aimed at opposing moves by government, multilateral funding institutions and big local and transnational corporations to privatize water resources, systems and utilities and amass profits at the expense of the people
IBON also actively participates in the following networks: Consumer International, World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), and Commission Number 2 of the International League of People's Struggles (ILPS).