Residents from the barangays covered by the Rehabilitation of Billoca-San Juan and Eight (8) Bridges in Batac City and Sarrat, Ilocos Norte and teachers as well as students of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) attended the Training on the Involvement of Citizens in Monitoring Rural Infrastructure Subprojects held at Northview Hotel, Laoag City, Ilocos Norte on June 5-8, 2018.

The Citizens Monitoring Tool (CMT) is a method adopted by the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) to intensify the surveillance of its subprojects. With the CMT, residents of subproject sites are taught basic elements of quality construction to ensure that the subproject is accomplished according to the standards set by the PRDP. Further, the PRDP aims to create a sense of ownership in the citizens through their involvement and imbibe the mindset to ensure quality within the timeline set by the project.

Aside from the residents, the PRDP also tapped the students and teachers of the College of Engineering of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Batac City. Dean Nathaniel Alibuyog of the College of Engineering said, “The CMT will serve as an on-the-job training for our students, while the teachers can enhance their teaching methods especially in ethics. With this partnership, we expect to produce better graduates and better citizens.”

The CMT training focused on instilling the five (5) elements of quality assurance in a project that include management support system, contract review process, inspection and testing procedures, document control procedures, and operation and maintenance procedures. The participants were given questionnaires answerable by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to gauge the compliance of the subproject to the elements of quality assurance.

The training also included a field immersion for the participants to give them a first-hand experience of how CMT works. The participants visited the construction sites of the Rehabilitation of the Billoca-San Juan and Eight Bridges traversing Batac City and Sarrat, Ilocos Norte.  The FMR and bridges subproject is the largest infrastructure subproject implemented under the PRDP in the Province of Ilocos Norte with a total cost of Php152,183,994.79.

Finally, the participants were taught how to use the applied geotagging technology in the monitoring of the subproject. Each participant downloaded a geotagging application which was used during the field immersion.

In a follow up interview with the MMSU students, Ms. Bliselda Palma from the Agricultural Engineering Department said, “Through CMT, we learned that we should not be afraid to ask the contractor about the project in our area.”

After the CMT, the participants will take part in the monitoring of the subprojects in Ilocos Norte. The schedule of monitoring will be based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will be undertaken by the Province of Ilocos Norte, the MMSU, and the Department of Agriculture (DA). ### (Dessa U. Estrada, RPCO1 InfoACE)