TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Provincial Agriculturist Engr. Domingo Bakilan during the inauguration and turn-over of the Bado Dangwa-Guilayon Farm to Market Road in this city highlighted five best practices he observed as factors in the speedy completion of said project.

Agriculture Secretary William Dollente Dar personally graced the event held on September 30, 2020 at Barangay Guilayon of this city.

Bakilan, cited that said sub-project topped the nationwide physical progress ranking for having been completed within 634 days instead of the 814 calendar-days target, or five months and 29 days ahead of the target date which is March 4, 2021, with a variance of +24.34 percent as of September 6, 2020 despite the imposition of community quarantine prohibitions.

The 10.415 kilometer road project amounting to P230,650,513.00 is one with the highest cost of approved sub-projects under the I-BUILD component of the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) in the country.

According to Bakilan, the agreement of the Omengan Construction Development Corporation (OCDC) and Royal Sea Bees Corporation (RSBC) to implement the project as a joint venture played a vital role in achieving such recognition and feat. He said that instead of competing for the bidding, both bidders decided to work together making their job easier and faster.

Secondly, he commended the engineers of the project saying “the project engineers of the two contractors are energetic, industrious and dependable.” This he said was a result of both trying to compete to come up with the better output.

“Number three is that we have not met any problem with the community during the implementation. Awan iti nangi-parit parit ti road right of way,” he said commending the communities of the three barangays which the road traverses. These include Bado-Dangwa, Nambucayan and Guilayon.

“Dayta iti mangipakita a kasapulan yu unay iti kalsada,” he said.

He also cited the cooperation and helpfulness of the barangay officials as one of the best practices during the project implementation.

And lastly, he underscored the cooperation among the provincial and city officials, the persistence of the Provincial Planning Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PPMIU) and the technical working group to accomplish the ‘voluminous requirements’ as a vital factor for the project to proceed.

He said that close coordination with their counterpart in the region and PRDP national is well established. “Iti PPMIU iti province, saan kami nga agang-angal, nu ibaga da nga isubmit mi iti kastoy nakasagana kami ta ammu mi a nu saan tayo ag-submit saan tayo a maala iti proyekto,” he said commending the group for rendering overtime just to comply with the submission and accomplish all the requirements.

He also recalled that from the P230,650,513.00 total project cost, P184,560,000.00 came from World Bank, P23,070,000.00 from the Department of Agriculture and P23,070,000.00 came from the city government of Tabuk as counterpart.

“Malaksid iti dayta, iti city government metlang ti nangiyapan kadagiti KAELCO post iti kalsada isu a mapan a 24 milyon iti kasla a counterpart da,” he disclosed. ### Geraldine Dumallig (Tabuk City Information Office)