Youth Empowerment Through Scouting

I was a boy scout since elementary days in Saint Joseph College.  During our time, scouting is part of the curriculum and it is integrated in our physical education, health and music program.  Every month of October, we joined thousands of boy scouts all over Maasin in filling up the whole Anatalio Gaviola Plaza for the scouting rallies and camporal contests.

We experienced cooking and building fires including first aid and tree planting.  Knot tying is one basic skill which is very useful in our everyday practical life.   Troop formations strengthened our team building with other scouts.  There were games played also by patrols during scout gatherings.

When I was first year high school student, I applied to join the 6th Regional Jamborette in Sibulan, Negros Oriental near Dumaguete City.  I cried because I was declared unfit by a government physician to join the Jamborette.  I was diagnosed to have asthma which actually I don't have.  I was really very interested to go with the Saint Joseph College delegation joining the Southern Leyte Council contingent.       

With the support of my parents, we seek medical clearance from another government physician and I was given the go signal to go with the group.  That was year 1975 and amidst the big waves in crossing Cebu to Negros island, I was able to survive the first solid test of overcoming my seasickness.

Our tents were not ready made during that time and we had to build them.  We cooked food using firewood.  I survived the tests of outdoor life.  The whole activity was rocked by an incident, a scout from Cebu got drowned and died in the camp swimming pool.   Our contingent was safe though and we went home to Maasin full of pride, like soldiers going home from war.
 
When I was in the third year high school, I joined the 6th National Jamboree in Camp Capitol Hills, Cebu City.  The whole SJC delegation was booked at Subcamp Ancajas just very near the arena.  We cooked our own food, joined several camp activities including the very challenging adventure trail, and hiked several kilometers from the city to Lahug where our camp was situated.

We experienced New Year as we welcomed 1978 full of revelry in the camp.  The jamboree was also hit by a typhoon and we experienced flooding of our camp.    But we survived the nature's wrath and went home to Maasin safely.

In my 4th year in high school, even if I was already an officer in the Citizen's Army Training (CAT), I still joined the 1st So. Leyte Provincial Jamborette in December 1978 as staff.  It was held at Danao, Malapoc Norte.  We were facilitators in the different activities and did household chores in the camp official's quarters.  
There was a lull in my scouting when I was in college until my early professional days.  But in 1992 when I was elected Sangguniang Bayan Member (Municipal Councilor) I was elected into the Council Executive Board with the position of 2nd Vice Chairman.  After 14 years, I was back to Scouting! 

With Congressman Roger Mercado as the Council Chairman, we hold the 2nd Provincial Jamborette, also 14 years had passed since the first one when I was still a student.   It was conducted at the Capitol Sunken Garden.   The 3rd and 4th Provincial Jamborette followed until 1998 when then Gov. Rosette Lerias was elected as the Council Chairman and I was chosen the 1st Vice Chairman.

In 2001 I was elected as Council Chairman for Southern Leyte.  We hold the 5th Provincial Jamborette at Danao, this time called the Maasin City Forest Park.  After 23 years, Scouting is back at Danao!

As Council Chairman we sent contingents to the 12th National Jamboree at  Palo, Leyte in 2001, the 2nd National Scout Venture at Sorsogon City in 2002, the 13th National Jamboree at Mt. Makiling in 2004, the 3rd National Scout Venture at Cebu in 2005, the 4th National Rover Moot at Cabadbaran in 2005, the Centennial Jamboree in 2007 at Mt. Makiling, the 4th National Scout Venture at Camiguin in 2008, the 5th National Rover Moot at Davao City in 2008, the 6th National Rover Moot at Tumauini, Isabela in 2009, the 26th Asia-Pacific Jamboree at Mt. Makiling in 2009, the 14th National Diamond Jamboree at Mt. Makiling in 2011. I joined all these jamborees to give moral booster to our scouts. 

I attended two national jamborees in Mt. Makiling with my wife Chona and three sons.  During the national jamboree in 2004 we spent New Year and Chona's birthday in the camp.  The other one was the Diamond Jubilee Jamboree in 2011.  My sons attended the National Eagle Conclave that time. 

Two times, in the 26th Asia-Pacific Jamboree and the National Diamond Jamboree, I acted as sub-camp chief.  For the first one, it included delegations from other countries such as Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan and delegations from other regions.  In the second one, the subcamp included all Visayas contingents. 

During my chairmanship, the first batch of Rover Scouts, scouts aged 16 and above or college level, were accepted into the scouting movement in Southern Leyte through rover vigils and investiture programs.  First conducted were the Sangguniang Kabataan chairmen, then SK kagawads, youth leaders, then college students especially from Maasin City College.  Thousands of rover scouts were trained into the ideals of scouting.  They were oriented on the five rocks of life which blocks their way to success.  These stumbling blocks include irreligion, hambugery, alcoholism, gambling and womanizing.

We had institutionalized the Kab Olympics for the Kab Scouts who were grades one up to grades four.  It was held every year for the Charter Day celebration since 2003.  Hundreds of Kab Scouts all over Maasin City converged to play games with their parents.

We conducted Patrol Leaders' Training Course in all districts of Maasin City Division and in all districts in Southern Leyte Division.  Also, Basic Training Course were held for adult leaders all throughout Southern Leyte. 

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We trained scouts for advancement.  After five years and after several jamborees that they joined, we produced five Eagle Scouts, the first in Southern Leyte.  Three of these were my sons - Mallory Samaco, Marton Samaco and Marlon Samaco - and Karl Pete Carrayo and Jefferson Dances.   

Maasin City and Southern Leyte Council hosted the 13th Regional Jamborette in 2008.  The first time a regional boy scouts activity was conducted in the province.  It again hosted the 7th National Rover Moot and the 1st One Visayas Jamborette simultaneously in 2010.  Again it was the first time the province hosted such big activities. 

I was elected Regional Chairman for Eastern Visayas Region which includes regions 7 and 8.  That was in 2009, when the Regional Scout Committee meeting was held in Maasin City.  I was reelected during the regional elections in 2010 at Siquijor and again reelected in 2011 at Northern Samar.  Other regional meetings I presided were held in Cebu City and Naval, Biliran.  

As Regional Chairman, the Regional Scout Committee was able to establish two new associate councils.  These are the Tacloban City Associate Council and the Siquijor Associate Council.  I also lobbied for their approval at the national level.    

I became an automatic member of the National Executive Board.  I attended board meetings and Annual National Council Meetings such as those in Manila, Cebu, Iloilo, Makati, and Zamboanga.  I had several occasions of meeting Vice President and BSP National President Jejomar Binay.   Every time we met he called me giant killer because of what happened in the 2007 mayoral elections. 

During the Annual National Council Meeting in Zamboanga City, I made a presentation of Maasin City and Southern Leyte as prospective host to the National Rover Moot to some 300 delegates and scout executives from all over the Philippines. 

As Regional Chairman I hosted the woodbadge training for troop leaders in Maasin in 2009 where I was a trainee.  It was participated in by adult leaders from the entire region.  Probably I was the only incumbent local chief executive in the entire country who participated in a training so rigid and humiliating as the woodbadge for troop leaders.  During that time, I was not treated as mayor but as an ordinary adult leader.  We cooked our own food, slept in tents, hiked, jogged, went through obstacles and undergone training through sleepless nights for eight days.     

In 2011, we had conducted again the same woodbadge training at City Forest Park.  This time it was a back to back training for kawan leaders and troop leaders from all over the region.  Kawan leaders are for the Kab Scouts while troop leaders are for the Boy Scouts.

That same year I addressed to more than 200 scout executives, field scout executives, council staff members, and commissioners during the 52nd Annual National Scout Executives Conference at Bohol Plaza, Tagbilaran, Bohol.  I discussed our scouting programs in Southern Leyte Council and Eastern Visayas Region. 


   
We also recruited street children to our Neighborhood Scouting program.  These twenty-two boys were out-of-school youth and they were called bakal boys because they steal iron and steel for selling to junk yards.  Sixteen of them survived the training and had joined a provincial and a national jamboree.   They stopped their stealing trade and planted vegetables at the backyard of the BSP office to earn money.

These boys were enrolled in the Alternative Learning System of the Department of Education.  They graduated on December 2011.  We are still hoping that some of these boys will get the Eagle Rank and become the first out-of-school youth in the whole Philippines to be advanced as Eagle Scouts.  

I received two national awards during two Annual National Council Meetings.  The first one at Dusit Hotel, Makati City on 2002, recognizing the donation of a camp site for the boy scouts at Danao and the numerous financial assistance given by the city government to the BSP.  The second one a Bronze Usa Award at Sarabia Manor Hotel and Convention Center, Iloilo City in 2010 for years of exemplary service to scouting.   

In October 2011, the Golden Jubilee Jamboree was held at Camp Danao, Maasin City Forest Park.  Fifty years had passed since the BSP Southern Leyte Council was established a year after the province was born.  I'm very glad that I am very much  a part of scouting history in Southern Leyte and all throughout the country.  On my honor, I did my best to do my duty to God and my country.