Lingayen, Pangasinan – Expressing his full support to the implementation of the Philippine Rural Development Project in the Province of Pangasinan, newly elected Governor Amado I. Espino III signed the endorsement letter supporting the request of the Department of Agriculture to avail additional US$450M loan financing from the World Bank to fund additional infrastructure development subprojects proposed under PRDP.

PRDP-RPCO 1 staffs headed by Focal Person and Regional Technical Director for Operations Dr. Paz L. Mones, met with the Governor on August 22, 2016 in a courtesy call at his office to orient him about PRDP and elicit his full support to the project.

As a national policy, the PRDP request for additional funding must be endorsed by the Regional Development Council (RDC) and be supported as well by the endorsement from the governors. If approved, the additional funding will enable PRDP to fund other infrastructure subprojects including those which have not been pipelined, amounting to about P4.73 billion. Ilocos Region alone has a total of P2.08 billion infrastructure portfolio under PRDP.

“We are committed to support projects that aim to improve the lives of our constituents.”, Espino said. Taking in the very welcoming gesture of Gov. Espino to the RPCO 1 during the meeting, Dir. Mones took the chance to further seek the assistance of the province in providing fund assistance to cooperatives with proposals under the Small Livelihood Project (SLP) which is under the Enterprise Development (I-REAP) Component of PRDP but have limited fund for their counterpart.

Dr. Mones explained that there are still four pending 2015 SLP proposals of San Fabian, Pangasinan from its total of eight (8) proposals, which could not yet be submitted because the proponent cooperatives could not produce the entire amount of the needed counterpart amounting to P800,000.

With this, Gov. Espino referred the matter to Dr. Benita M. Pizarro, the Provincial Project Mangement and Implementing Unit (PPMIU) head of Pangasinan and asked if they could accommodate said request and upon learning that there are available funds allocated for PRDP counterpart that can be provided to help the cooperatives, he then gave his approval to shoulder the additional funds for the counterpart.

The Province of Pangasinan currently has two Infrastructure subproject proposals approved under PRDP. The Rehabilitation of Gonzales-San Juan Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) in Umingan, Pangasinan worth P112.6 million and the Construction of Oraan Bridge with approaches worth P20.6 million. Both have already been issued with No Objection Letter (NOL 1) hence, they can now proceed with the procurement process .

Under the Enterprise Development, Pangasinan has one Small Livelihood Project (SLP) proposal already approved and issued with No Objection Letter. This is the Farm Mechanization Service Facility worth 1.2 million proposed by the Women’s Unity for Progress & Farmers MPC in Mapandan, Pangasinan. (Ilocos InfoACE)