RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY

Research Method

This qualitative research utilizes a critical research design to identify the economic

opportunity programs initiated by the government for Persons with Visual Impairment in

Mandaue City, Cebu, Philippines amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and examine the collaboration

of the governance triad in the implementing said programs using Ansell and Gash’s Model of

Collaborative Governance, specifically the collaborative process, as lens for analysis.

Key Informants

This study requires interviews with personnel belonging to the governance triad, namely

the government, the market sector, and civil society organizations.

As the study focuses on identifying the economic opportunity programs provided by the

government for Persons with Visual Impairment in Mandaue City and examining the

collaboration between the governance triad in implementing the programs, interviews with five

(5) key informants coming from the local government of Mandaue City with technical

know-how on the programs intended for Persons with Visual Impairment are conducted.

Furthermore, five (5) market sector stakeholders including business owners, managers, and/or

receptionists of massage businesses that employ Persons with Visual Impairment will be

interviewed. Lastly, five (5) key informants from civil society organizations (CSOs) that

facilitate economic opportunity programs for Persons with Visual Impairment will be

interviewed. The CSOs, whether international, national, or local organizations, must have active

operations in Mandaue City.

 A total of fifteen (15) key informants are interviewed from the following government

institutions, businesses, and civil society organizations (see Appendix E):

National Government Agency. This pertains to the Department of Social Welfare and

Development's (DSWD) Area Vocational Rehabilitation Center II (AVRC II), a non-residential

facility that was built to offer social and vocational rehabilitation services and programs using a

center-based approach to rehabilitation. With the primary objective of enabling people with

disabilities to become productive and contributing members of society through integration in the

workforce, the Center provides services such as social adjustment, vocational guidance and

counseling, psychological, medical, and dental care, vocational training, job placement, and

administrative support to PWDs and people with special needs who are 16 to 60 years old. The

AVRC II is located at Labangon, Cebu City.

Local Government of Mandaue City. This refers to the two offices under the local

government unit of Mandaue City, namely the Mandaue City Social Welfare Services (Mandaue

CSWS) and the Persons with Disabilities Affairs Office - Mandaue (PDAO Mandaue). Mandaue

CSWS is the welfare agency of the city, mandated to provide comprehensive programs and

services, capacitate and improve the quality of life of the poor and disadvantaged individuals,

groups, and communities through its social welfare interventions. Government A was devolved

and created on 20 July 1994 through City Ordinance No. 94/017. Under the umbrella of the city

welfare agency are various program divisions that cater to the needs of vulnerable sectors. The

PDAO Mandaue was created and institutionalized under City Ordinance No. 14-2017-1260,

adopting the Republic Act No. 10070, an act establishing an institutional mechanism to ensure

the implementation of PWD-related programs and services at the local level. It currently has

plantilla positions and job orders for PWDs in the city. The office provides separate programs
from Mandaue CSWS, but all the programs and activities of the division pass through the city

welfare agency’s Officer-in-Charge for approval and to guarantee that these programs and

activities are implemented.

Tulong Mo, Tulong Ko, Biyaya ng Diyos (TMTKBD) Blind Massage. This is a sole

proprietor massage business established in 2012. It currently operates at Insular Square Mall in

Mandaue City and employs 15 blind massage therapists and four guides. Like the two privately

owned massage businesses mentioned above, TMTKBD Blind Massage also does not have a

fixed salary and implements equal sharing of profits.

Carefull Hands Blind Masseurs. It is a partnership business of two blind masseurs

established in 2021. The business is located at City Times Square in Mandaue City. It currently

only has two blind massage therapists and one guide. The business also implements equal

sharing of profits.

Hearts and Hands Blind Massage Services. It is a sole proprietor business established in

2021. They are located at the ground floor of J-Centre Mall in Mandaue City, Island Central Mall

in Lapu-Lapu City, Fooda in Consolacion, and JY Square Mall in Lahug, Cebu City. The

business is in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Area

Vocational Rehabilitation Center II and currently employs 26 blind massage therapists

professionally trained at the center, as well as five guides, three of whom are persons with other

disabilities, who work in rotation within their three branches. The business does not have a fixed

salary, but implements equal sharing of profits instead.

The Helping Hands Organization of PWD, Inc. This is a self-help, non-profit

organization established in 2003 with almost ninety to one hundred Persons with Visual

Impairment members. Their office is located at Labangon, Cebu City. The decision to establish
an organization that would create and operate a massage therapy service was made by

individuals who had graduated from Area Vocational Rehabilitation Center II and had, in

particular, studied massage. Their blind massage livelihoods are located at Parkmall in Mandaue

City occupying four areas in the establishment, Marina Mall in Lapu-Lapu City, SM

Hypermarket Lapu-Lapu, SM Consolacion, Robinsons Cybergate in Cebu City, Colonnade Mall,

SM City Cebu, Metro Ayala IT Park, APM Centrale Mall, SM Seaside Cebu, and Gaisano

Tabunok.

Mandaue Blind Association. It is a PWD organization affiliated with Government B.

Around 2009, a group of people with vision impairments in Mandaue City who felt left out of

programs and services for people with disabilities formed the association. In 2013, the

organization launched their livelihood initiative with the help of Government B. It is currently

located at J Centre Mall at Mandaue City. The livelihood initiative serves as a training ground for

newly graduated blind massage therapists and a source of income for skilled blind massage

therapists in Cebu province.

Resources for the Blind, Inc. It is a Christian, non-governmental organization founded in

1988 by Dr. Arthur Lown, an American blind man whose initial work in the Philippines involved

helping three blind Filipino pastors transcribe the Filipino Bible into braille. The organization

assists people with visual disabilities by providing them with a variety of skills that enable them

to obtain any job or start a business. They currently have branches in Manila, Cebu, and Davao.

Their Cebu branch is located at General Echavez St, Cebu City.

Research Environment

This study is conducted in one of the highly urbanized cities (HUCs) of the Province of
Cebu, Philippines, Mandaue City. The said HUC is the third most populous city in the province

and highly contributes 92.1% employment rate to the estimated total employed persons

according to the 2021 Annual Labor Market Statistics (Preliminary Results) of the Philippine

Statistics Authority (2022).

There are around 3,000 registered PWDs in the first class coastal city of Mandaue

(Cotejo, 2022) among a population of 364,116 in its 27 barangays based on the 2020 census

(Philippine Statistics Authority, 2021). As of April 30, 2022, the Mandaue City Persons with

Disability Affairs Office recorded a total of 5,120 persons with disabilities, with 551 of them

being Persons with Visual Impairment.

Figure 3. Map of Mandaue City in the Province of Cebu, Philippines

and Its Barangays
 Sex-Age Disaggregated Data of VIs in Mandaue City

Age Range Male Female

0-17 78 75
18-35 79 76
36-45 41 34
46-59 80 75
60+ 9 4
TOTAL 287 264
GRAND TOTAL 551

Source of basic data: Mandaue City Persons with Disability Affairs Office, April 30, 2022

Research Instrument

This study utilizes a researcher-made questionnaire to gather in-depth information from

the key informants through an unstructured, one-on-one interview to allow follow-up questions.

The questionnaire is divided into two parts namely a) Participant’s Profile and b)

Interview Questions. The interview questions are subdivided into four parts: a) Profile of Persons

with Visual Impairment, b) Economic Opportunity Programs and Projects for Persons with

Visual Impairment, c) Collaboration Features in the Program/Project Implementation, and d)

Ways Forward. The key informants, chosen using purposive sampling, are provided with a

research information sheet sent through electronic mails, online messaging platforms, and

physical letters, as well as visiting concerned government institutions in person to give them a

brief overview about the research they will be participating in.

The interview is conducted either virtual or face-to-face, which proceed only with the

expressly given consent of the key informants, who are given an informed consent form to sign
as proof of their agreement to be interviewed. Verbal consents are likewise recognized. All the

interviews are recorded and transcribed. Subsequently, the gathered data is analyzed to identify

the programs of the governance triad and examine the collaboration between the three in

implementing the said economic opportunity programs for Persons with Visual Impairment using

Ansell and Gash’s Model of Collaborative Governance.

Data Analysis

Based on the given information of the 15 key informants, the existing, sustained, and

newly introduced economic opportunity programs of the government implemented before and

during the pandemic are identified and classified into two categories: 1) Technical Assistance,

which refers to non-monetary interventions, particularly capability building activities, that seek

to improve the needs-based competencies of individuals, groups, and organizations, and 2)

Resource Augmentation, which pertains to the provision of in-kind and monetary support for the

immediate response and early recovery of victims of disasters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic

(DSWD Memorandum Circular No. 10, s. 2018).

Furthermore, narratives of the key informants from the government, market, and civil

society organizations on their collaboration with other stakeholders in creating and or

implementing the economic opportunity programs for the VI community are analyzed by

employing a thematic analysis, which identifies and interprets patterns of meanings or emergent

themes based on the responses of the key informants ( (Delahunt & Maguire, 2017).

Data familiarization is an important step in understanding major themes that recur

across the data. In this step of the analysis, transcripts from all key informants are read through

and familiarized to look for key statements that aligns with the definition explained by Ansell
and Gash for each of the five phases of the collaborative process from the model of Collaborative

Governance, namely: (1) face-to-face dialogue, (2) trust-building, (3) commitment to process, (4)

shared understanding, and (5) intermediate outcomes. Problem areas in the collaborative process

are likewise identified using the same method. After familiarizing the data gathered from the

unstructured one-on-one interview, the data are indexed, applying a paraphrase or label that

describes what has been interpreted in the passages. These are subsequently organized in a

matrix form, categorized into cluster themes. From these cluster themes, key emergent themes

are identified.

Content analysis is likewise incorporated to verify the existing government responses and

policies implemented for PWDs, specifically for Persons with Visual Impairment as well as

provide another perspective on the provision of programs and services for VIs that supports the

findings of this study. The documents analyzed included news articles, Republic Acts and their

Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR), government agencies and/or offices’ annual reports,

citizen charters, and official government websites, which discussed and elaborated on the

projects, programs, and activities implemented by the government, their mandates, and their

existing partnerships with the private sector and civil society organizations, as well as research

journals and discussion papers that lay out policy analysis on the government’s policies and

programs for PWDs.