“Padasen tayo met man ti magna ti simento haan laeng nga ti lotlot (let us also try to walk on concrete not only on mud).”

This was how Jun Dalilis, 65, a beneficiary of the ongoing Bado Dangwa – Guilayon farm-to-market-road improvement, teasingly answered his neighbor when asked why he was walking when the road is already concreted.

Dalilis is a resident of barangay Nambucayan, one of the road influence area of the ongoing road project under the Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA PRDP) in Tabuk City, Kalinga.

“Inmayak ditoy idi 1979, nagpamilya ket inyawid ko idjay Nambucayan. Kapipigsaan ti kape idi, isunga nagmulmula ak met ah, inay-aywanak. Isunga dagita mulak nga kape ket idi paylang dagita, mga seven hectares (I went here in 1979, made a family and settled in Nambucayan. Coffee trading was at its height that time, so I planted and maintained about seven hectares that still exists until now),” he said.

Though the road does not pass exactly along his farm, the thought of not having to carry heavy loads through the muddy road makes him joyful.

Expressing the same sentiments, Luzviminda Valderama shared how some of the residents in their barangay did not believe that their road will soon be concreted. Some would even speak ill of it and they would try to persuade them over and again.

“Adu ti haan nga mamati idi, ngem itadta ngay, makita dan nga adan, nagpintas ta masimsimenton ken haanen nga lotlot (there were some who did not believe but as they can see, the road is now being concreted, and it’s actually very nice),” Valderama said adding that she hopes that the concreted road will not cause accidents.

According to Engr. Gaston B. Cael, head of the I-BUILD (Infrastructure Development) component of the PRDP Regional Project Coordination Office – CAR (RPCO-CAR), the FMR subproject is already 47% completed as of July 23, 2019.

The 10.4-kilometer Bado Dangwa-Guilayon FMR has a project cost of P230, 650,513.00 shared by the World Bank, the Government of the Philippines through the DA, and the Provincial LGU of Kalinga. It covers four barangays namely: Bado Dangwa, Nambucayan, Guilayon, and Magnao and shall benefit around 1,015 households or 5,096 population.

“With less than fifty percent progress, the project is implemented with positive accomplishment, which means, it would either be completed on or before its target completion,” said Cael. ### ELVY S. TAQUIO (DA PRDP)