Vigan City, Ilocos Sur (March 6, 2015) — During the Provincial Development Council (PDC) Meeting at the Ilocos Sur Provincial Capitol, the Luzon A Project Support Office (PSO) with the Regional Project Coordination Office 1 (RPCO 1) presented the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) to the Municipal Local Government Units (MLGUs) of Ilocos Sur.

Ilocos Sur Vice Governor Deogracias Victor Savellano appealed in his welcome speech to the MLGUs, mostly represented by Municipal Planning and Development Officers (MPDOs), to include PRDP in crafting their municipality’s development plans. He said that MLGUs should take PRDP as an opportunity to improve the industry of prioritized commodities, like mango, peanut, goat, garlic and onion, in their areas.

Luzon A PSO Deputy Project Director Elma Mananes presented the PRDP’s history, objectives, process flows, components, expected outputs and recent milestones to the MLGUs. She encouraged the MLGUs to help PPMIUs initiate subproject proposls to fast track the implementation of PRDP in their areas.

Under the Intensified Building Up of Infrastructure and Logistics for Development (IBUILD), MLGUs are allowed to enter into agreement with the Department of Agriculture had they complied all the criteria required in the Operations Manual necessary for subproject application.

Meanwhile, Ilocos Sur Provincial Project Management and Implementing Unit (PPMIU) Head Dr. Enrie Mendoza presented Ilocos Sur’s Provincial Commodity investment Plan (PCIP). The PCIP is the list of interventions to be funded by the government and PRDP under the regional prioritized commodities. Knowing the content of Ilocos Sur’s PCIP, MLGUs can synchronize their development plans to that of the province.

PRDP is a six-year national project to develop the country’s agriculture and fishery sectors led by the Department of Agriculture in partnership with the World Bank. It has a total fund allocation of around P27 billion and was officially implemented on December 2014. With just only 3 months of implementation, the Project already has P17 billion-worth of pipelined subprojects. Luzon A PSO and RPCO 1 aims to increase the subprojects proposed under PRDP in the Region through involving MLGUs. (Ilocos InfoACE)