Philippine Self-Help Foundation
Locating the Land Markers
PSHF Trustee John Wilson and his daughter Alice visited us in Bohol in June 2023. The two of them kindly volunteered to help us locate the markers delineating our land borders and to pick up trash that had been dumped in our grounds over the years. John relates their experience below.
We spent a few hot and sweaty hours on the plot in Songculan pushing our way through thickets to locate “mohon”, which are small concrete boundary-marker pegs in the undergrowth.
They were very hard to find, even when we thought we knew which imaginary line they should be on. The land was so overgrown that we could never see very far across the plot, so I couldn't get a sense of its area, but we had fun using the bolos.
At one point I was warned about a little cloud of tiny, harmless-looking insects in a shady spot, flying just above the ground, but I went too close and discovered what biting midges are!
A First Big Clearing in January 2025
Our team of four workers led by Robert started the big job by clearing the 100 metres of access from the barangay road.
Their first job was to plant yellow flags to help them know the exact route of the access.
Cleaning the Land in May 2025
We soon discovered after clearing parts of our land that it had become a dumping site for some nearby residents over the years.
On the first day of cleaning, I (Analyn) was aided by my two sisters and a neighbour but on the second day, my two children, my mother, another sister and a niece all joined the party. An abundance of sachets, plastic bottles, diapers, cans and glass bottles were picked up, segregated and put into sacks.
Prior to to the cleaning, I had been to the barangay hall of Songculan to inquire about the schedule of garbage collection and it was the following:
Mondays - Sachets and diapers
Thursdays - Plastic bottles
Saturdays - Tin cans
It transpired that glass bottles and broken glass was not been collected at that time as the barangay’s bottle crusher machine was out of order.