A total of P239 million was disbursed by DA-PRDP IX from January to July 2020 and made Region IX as Top 2 performing region in Mindanao in terms of disbursement performance.

In the recent guesting over “Kumusta Mag-uuma” radio program at RMN-dxPR (Pagadian City), Assistant Regional Director and concurrent Deputy Project Director Ferdinand D. Gamorot proudly announced that Region IX ranked 2nd in terms of disbursement performance for I-BUILD subprojects in Mindanao Cluster for the past 7 months.

For the said period, Region 9 garnered an accumulated over-all rating of 90 percent for both original loan (OL) and additional financing 1 (AF1). He was even prouder to report that for July disbursement targets both on OL and AF1, Region IX ranked No. 1 . For OL, its actual disbursement of P53.35 million against the P19.53 million surpassing 273% rating and 358 % rating out of P15.92 million target the actual disbursed was P56.94 million.

Gamorot attributed these accomplishments through the cooperation and support from the governors and mayors with on-going subprojects because they were the ones who signed and approved the statement of works accomplished made by the contractors for payment.

On the other hand, I-BUILD head Juanito C. Taripe, Jr., was grateful to Regional Executive Director Rad Donn L. Cedeño who personally met with both Governors Victor Yu (Zamboanga del Sur) and Roberto Uy (Zamboanga del Norte) to discuss on the strategies to be employed so as to meet the disbursement target. Likewise, he thanked Governor Yu for he exerted extra effort to meet with the contractors to commit to deliver certain accomplishment. Taripe, was also the guest of “Kumusta Mag-uuma” next to Gamorot who presented the updates of DA-PRDP implementation status in Zamboanga Peninsula region.

PRDP is a World Bank-assisted rural development project implemented by DA where the regional coordination offices were rated according to its disbursement performance. PRDP Mindanao Cluster consists of 6 regions that were asked to accelerate disbursement especially to subprojects funded from the original loan which is to end this 2020 for a 6-year implementation period from 2014-2020.

With the pandemic, project implementation is not hampered as PRDP special project, Director Cedeño personally requested mayors to allow entry of materials and equipment to the project sites. He also wrote governors and mayors to continue project implementation and provided them with copies of DPWH’s Department Order No. 35 stating the Construction Safety Guidelines for the Implementation of all DPWH Infrastructure Projects during COVID-19 Public Health Crisis. Director Cedeño also issued ‘Workers Pass’ through the contractors for skilled workers and laborers.

To date, Taripe disclosed that Region 9 secured a total portfolio of P2.3 Billion for 23 approved I-BUILD subprojects distributed in the 3 provinces to be directly benefited by more than 24,000 household beneficiaries. Zamboanga Sibugay has 15 subprojects (11 were completed; 4 on-going) worth P760 million. Zamboanga del Norte had 2 completed and 2 ongoing amounting to P953 million while Zamboanga del Sur has 4 ongoing worth P566 million# (Remai S. Alejado/RPCO 9)