In order to track the accomplishments of each component, the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) Regional Project Coordination Office 3 (RPCO 3) held a management meeting on September 19, 2022, at the DA Regional Field Office III Conference Room in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga.

Action Officer Maricel Dullas explained that such a meeting was necessary to track if the components’ targets set from this year’s first quarterly meeting are being met and to discuss catch-up plans to achieve the remaining targets for 2022. Representatives from the four components of the DA-PRDP RPCO 3 presented their respective component’s status and updates.

From the national and local planning component, I-PLAN, Planning Officer Engr. Jerome Manuyag enumerated the provinces’ endorsed commodities for PRDP funding and provided status of the Value Chain Analysis (VCA) and Provincial/City Commodity Investment Plan preparation and updating. Manuyag also shared that the VCA for broiler chicken already underwent its first drafting after gathering data from the selected provinces in the region.

I-BUILD Component Head, Engr. Elmer Tubig, provided the accomplishment and status of the infrastructure projects funded by PRDP. Tubig stated that the improvement of two farm to market roads (FMR) in Sto. Domingo, Nueva Ecija and Macabebe, Pampanga are set to be 100% physically complete by the end of September and mid-October 2022, respectively, and 100% financially complete by the first half of November 2022. Another FMR in Floridablanca to Porac, Pampanga was already physically completed in June 2022 and is set to be turned over to the local government unit. Moreover, the onion cold storage subproject in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija is set to be completed by October 2023. On the other hand, there are four different subprojects in the region under procurement; three in the province of Bataan and one in Nueva Ecija.

Enterprise Development and Marketing Specialist Carissa Cabubus highlighted the enterprise development component’s accomplishments. Cabubus revealed that the I-REAP component was already able to accomplish 93% disbursement of funds under the Original Loan from the World Bank while 20% is already disbursed from the Second Additional Financing. The component was also able to have the approval of the Regional Project Advisory Board and correspondingly the endorsement of three enterprise subprojects from Nueva Ecija in the third quarter of the calendar year 2022.

The I-SUPPORT staff, PRDP’s component consisting of technical support units, presented their respective targets based on their Performance Evaluation Profile. Different issues and concerns were also raised during the meeting and were given resolutions by those concerned.

In his closing remarks, Regional Project Director Dr. Eduardo Lapuz Jr. thanked everyone for actively participating and encouraged the staff to accomplish their respective targets which the World Bank would use to gauge PRDP’s performance. (Ram Bill Bautista, InfoACE, RPCO 3)