“The Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) has taught us great lessons and experiences,  it has brought us better perspective in project identification leading to an improved agricultural development program,” Governor Junie Cua said in his message during the opening preliminaries of World Bank Mid Term Review Mission on November 21-24, 2017 at the Quirino Watersport Tourism Complex, Provincial Capitol, Cabarroguis, Quirino.

“We have learned many lessons out of PRDP, great lessons I tell you. It’s a lesson, it’s an experience that we can never forget. I think the concept of agricultural development has been put in place,” he said.

Great lessons from PRDP

By undertaking the project, the province has greatly appreciated all the tools in project implementation. “We now have a better framework of our agri programs,” Cua said.

Since the project’s inception in 2016, Quirino has undergone innovative ways of implementing projects. “It taught us a systematic, transparent and open procurement process not to mention our engineers now have a better grasp with site instructions,” he revealed.

More importantly, PRDP “greatly changed the culture of our people, our staff being more professional than ever befitting of funding support from the World Bank.”

“We need to constantly improve the way we do things and the time we approve things so that we may be worthy of the trust this project has given us,” he added.

He stressed that Quirino “had to look into the commodities that fit the province considering various social and environmental factors along the value chain.”

“Why do I say this? Because we are forced to come up with our Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP),” he said.

“We are forced to come up with a serious survey, considering the environmental impact, so I salute the Social and Environmental Safeguards. It also taught us how to implement and conduct our weekly coordination meetings. Our resident engineers are getting familiar to issue site instructions. They are now more professional than before,” he furthered.

He referred to the different science-based tools the PRDP has introduced like the Vulnerability and Sustainability Assessment (VSA), Geotagging and geomapping but foremost, he lauded the Social and Environmental Safeguards (SES) and its significance on infrastructure and enterprise development.

The campaign for inclusive growth in the country is clearly manifesting in the province of Quirino as PRDP has approved five (5) farm-to-market roads (FMR) and two (2) enterprise development projects about to be implemented.

Gov. Cua elaborated that the subprojects underwent a series of studies and consultations with the concerned local government units (LGUs) and beneficiaries.

Quirino, an agricultural province, stands to benefit hugely from these subprojects under PRDP, as it would help further solidify inter-agency cooperation, good governance and most importantly in increasing rural incomes and farm productivity.

“Despite the devolution of the mandates of agriculture to the LGUs, nothing significant can be said especially in terms of funding support,” he added.

The governor has expressed his view and stated that these subprojects are “great strides towards agricultural modernization of the country”.

“The whole PRDP process motivates us [LGU] to work hard since the project widely promotes creativity and innovation,” he stressed.

By undergoing the various processes of PRDP, the province has greatly improved in terms of harmonizing its planning and budgeting mechanisms, and using development science-based tools in the implementation of its other programs.

He revealed that in his three decades in the government as a congressman and governor, he now feels the firm stance of the government to upscale the agriculture sector when he said, “it is only at this time with this PRDP, that we are really feeling the seriousness of the government in supporting agriculture despite the devolution which I also had the opportunity in participating when we passed the local government code devolving the mandate of agriculture to local government.”

Having formally joined the PRDP through a Memorandum of Agreement on December 22, 2014, the governor affirmed  that “PRDP is a most welcome development for provinces like the province of Quirino, a struggling province, a third class province.”

“While competent people work together just like passionate people also work together, there is always room for improvement. We need to constantly improve the way we implement this [project], we need to improve the speed of our approval system so that we will be worthy of the support the World Bank is giving us. So, I would like to thank the Department of Agriculture, the World Bank, for promoting this kind of project.” he underscored.

He also thanked the different stakeholders for being truly great partners, adding that even though they are fortunate enough to have a structure like this, workshops are most welcome.

Likewise, he expressed his utmost gratitude for the (PRDP) in its all-out support to the implementation of various subprojects during the recently concluded World Bank Midterm Review Mission in the province.

Finally, he said he hoped his guests would come back and consider Quirino as their home away from home, saying their stay would not be complete without seeing the Governor’s Rapids, the Victoria Falls, and other scenic spots.

“This area is called Quirino Watersport Tourism Complex [the venue of the Opening Preliminaries and the Cluster Meeting]. This is a flagship project of the Provincial Government of Quirino, Office of the Congressman and all supporters of this project as a platform for our Tourist Destination Network. There are many things to discover in Quirino. I would encourage you to discover the undiscovered by visiting us again.” (Ferdinand N. Cortez & Jaycee M. Capalungan, RPCO2 InfoACE Unit)