The Region 12 Regional Project Advisory Board (RPAB) recently approved 345.2-Million Pesos worth of infrastructure sub projects from the provinces of Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato.

The RPAB will endorse 22 sub-projects from the said provinces for the issuance of no objection letters.

These proposed subprojects, to be funded under the Philippine Rural Development Project, include warehouses with solar driers, farm-to-market roads, slaughterhouse and potable water system.

Regional Executive Director Arlan Mangelen said that these subprojects will elevate the quality of life in the rural areas.

He added that proponents must ensure the quality of their project proposals for faster implementation.

“We need to ensure that these projects will be polished at our level so that it will have a swift approval in the next level,” Director Mangelen said.

Isulan Municipality proposed seven Potable Water Systems Level II subprojects worth P53.6-M.

These subprojects will address the lack of potable water supply to 7 barangays in with a total of 1,701 households.

Meanwhile, Antipas Municipality in North Cotabato also proposed the Construction of New Pontevedra-Malangag-Malatab PWS Level II worth P68-M to address the same problem in the said rural area.

More warehouses with solar driers will also be constructed soon in Lambayong and Esperanza. These will give solution to the problem of coconut, coffee and rice farmers.

If fully realized, this will be a big boost to their income. For instance, with the drying and storing facility, farmers can dry their produced whole nuts into copra which could be sold up to P36.00 per kilo.

Without drying facilities, they just sold their produced to traders at P30.00 per kilo. Same scenario with rice farmers. Traders will buy their produce at a higher price.

Traditionally grown rice farmers sell their produce to trader as ordinary rice (Wet) for only P12.00 per kilo.

With a drying facility and warehouse, farmers will not sell their produce as wet ordinary rice but dry it and sell as special rice P25.00/kilo.

To complete the list, two big ticket infrastructure subprojects approved by RPAB include the Construction of Non-Halal Double A “AA” Slaughterhouse (P34.2-M) and the seven-kilometer Concreting of Bilumin-Kapingkong Farm to Market Road (P125-M). (Carl Ulysses Aguilon, RPCO 13)