Kidapawan City-To engage the project beneficiaries in monitoring farm-to-market road (FMR) subproject, the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) conducted a Citizen Monitoring Team Training from September 1-4, 2020 in Kidapawan City.

Participants were beneficiaries from the three (3) barangays which included barangays Sumbac, Macebolig, and Onica. The 9.14km Concreting of Sumbac-Onica FMR subproject worth P130.28 million is still currently on-going with 36.08% physical progress.

CMT is one of the DA-PRDP’s innovations that helps ensure that each FMR recipient LGUs will have its own community-based monitoring team. The main objective of this training is to involve the project beneficiaries in overseeing the project implementation and for them to also have a sense of ownership over the project.

The training included basic infrastructure guidelines, Social and Environmental Safety, and Geotagging. The IPLAN component also presented to the participants the overview of Value Chain Analysis (VCA) and strategic prioritization of the FMR to boost the rubber commodity as well as the importance of sustainability plan for the project in their area.

Participants had an actual use of the monitoring instrument during the workshop where they were asked to identify whether the construction activities abide the guidelines imposed by DA-PRDP.

Through this training, it is expected that the barangay would officially organized its Citizen Monitoring Team where they can help in checking how the project is being implemented like during the pouring of cement. They can also record and report through Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) any problem they encountered during their monitoring or site inspection.

Evelyn I. Camat, a barangay treasurer and CMT participant, said that joining the CMT training made her understand better the process of road construction and their role in helping monitor the project.

“CMT taught us how to conduct project monitoring, not only for PRDP road projects, but to other projects in our barangay. As a citizen and a project beneficiary, I now understand that I have a bigger role to play here to ensure the success of this project,” said Camat.

Barangay Captain Michael Sagusay of Sumbac said that CMT training is very helpful because they learned that they could actually participate in project monitoring. In fact, he is planning with other barangay captains to pass a resolution that would cover the monitoring and maintenance of the said road.

“This Citizen Monitoring training is something new to us, but it allows us to understand that we can actually do something to help in checking how the project is being implemented and that we are allowed to report any irregularities. We will facilitate the creation of our own monitoring team here in our barangay and once the project is almost completed, we will pass a resolution for its maintenance,” said Sagusay.

After this training, barangay officials with assistance from DA-PDP, will work in institutionalizing monitoring activity at the barangay level and to include in its target the expansion of CMT membership that would include rubber commodity players such as farmers and traders. (Joy M. Montecalvo)