Author : Guinto, Mary Joyce Z.

Summary : The study was conducted to determine to which extent the community organizing (CO) done in Pianing Reforestation Subproject, Butuan City, Philippines was effective. Specifically, it was aimed at: (1) determining the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the respondents; (2) assessing the assisting organization/community organizers' performance based on the target group's perception; (3) evaluating the Community Organizing (CO) activities that were employed; (4) determining some problems encountered by the target group before and during the entry of the assisting organization; (5) evaluating to which extent the objectives of the Community Organizing (CO) were achieved; (6) evaluating the impact of the CO on the beneficiaries; (7) identifying some barriers to community organizing; (8) formulating some recommendations based on the findings of this study. The following factors contributed to these results: (1) loss of interest of the project beneficiaries due to the delayed release of funds and the sudden reduction of financial support from the funding institution; (2) Filipino negative attitudes and behaviors such as 'ningas cogon', 'crab mentality', and 'bahala na'; (3) the people organization's internal problems namely disunity, individualism, misunderstanding, mismanagement, favoritism, poor leadership, communication gaps between and among members and corruption; (4) fixed time frame of the community organizing (2 years) without considering the beneficiaries' satisfaction and ability to handle their own affairs after the phasing out of CO. All of the statements mentioned above were considered barriers to successful community organizing.