GENERAL SANTOS CITY- With the new funding opportunities brought by the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) Scale-Up, six local government units (LGU) in Region XII hoped to access financing for infrastructure subprojects from the said World Bank-assisted project.

These LGUs were new to proposing subprojects under the infrastructure development component of PRDP Scale-Up.

The LGUs presented their proposals during the Joint Technical Review (JTR) facilitated by the National Project Coordination Office (NPCO), Project Support Office (PSO) Mindanao and Regional Project Coordinating Office (RPCO) XII, recently.

All of the proposals of the six LGUs were Farm-to-Market Roads (FMR), with a combined length of 47.98 Kilometers which will benefit priority commodities in the provinces of South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.

JTR is an activity of PRDP to examine the viability of the proposed subprojects, completeness of documents and discuss possible findings to come up with recommendations.

These are the LGUs which underwent the JTR:

1. Tantangan, South Cotabato (Concreting of National Highway Junction-Sitio El Ulit FMR- 3 Kilometers)
2. Surallah, South Cotabato (Concreting of Sitio Lanas-Datal Banate-Buyos-Siop FMR-7.72 Kilometers)
3. Niño, South Cotabato (Concreting of National High Way Junction Crossing Fale-Riverside FMR-2.62 Kilometers)
4. T’boli, South Cotabato (Concreting of Maan-Datal Tablo FMR-8.63 kilometers)
5. Bagumbayan, Sultan Kudarat (Concreting of Kipuso-Sitio Janiuay Farm-to-Market Road- 7.5 Kilometers)
6. Senator Ninoy Aquino (Concreting of National High Way Lagubang-Banali-Buklod-Taopsis-Basag FMR- 18.5 Kilometers)

Zaldy Boloron, Deputy Project Director of RPCO XII, thanked the LGUs for their commitment in undergoing the tedious process.

“Amidst the tedious process, you are still here, and with your commitment, PRDP will capacitate you through assisting you in crafting great proposals,” he said.

Boloron added that through the LGUs’ participation in innovation activities like the JTR, they would learn the value of efficient project management process, and even feedback mechanism.

Technical consultants from the NPCO, PSO and RPCO helped the crafters from the LGU to improve their proposals and enhance their documentary requirements like the feasibility study, program of work and detailed engineering design.

Engineer Elmer Limpiado of LGU-Surallah appreciated PRDP’s giving of importance to the social and environmental safeguards (SES).

“With PRDP, they provide significance to SES especially in the process of preparation… as I observed with other agencies and project implementation, SES is just for mere compliance,” he said.

Engineer Limpiado also noted that although accessing subproject with PRDP demanded a lot of work on their part, he still positively praised the project for the strict compliance to documentary requirements.

“The preparation of documents and complying these documents were bearable since we have hands on consultants,” he added. (CARL AGUILLON-RPCO XII)