Three farm-to-market roads (FMRs) in Iloilo were inspected by the Department of Agriculture’s– Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) Regional Project Coordination Office (RPCO) 6 Team as part of its Operation and Maintenance Audit System (OMAS) Activity while utilizing the newly-introduced mobile OMAS where joint usage of KoBoCollect Application and PRDP Geo Camera were enforced for pilot run on September 16-17, 2021.

Among the FMR subprojects visited were the 9.9-kilometer Tinocuan-Maribuyong FMR in Dueñas, Iloilo with a total project cost of P103,719,890.42.

The Imbang Grande- Tagubong- Gemumua Agahon- Agtabo FMR in Passi City with a length of 28 kilometers amounting to P257,800,000.01 and holds the title as the longest completed FMR subproject in the region as to date was also up for inspection.

Lastly, the Parara-Jamog FMR located in the municipality of Tigbauan costing P87,481,951.49 was also visited for inspection.

During the conduct of OMAS for the several FMR subprojects, the team composed of representatives from the Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation Division together with the I-BUILD Component, and Monitoring and Evaluation Unit utilized the tools that were tentatively introduced to be rolled out among the local stakeholders of the PRDP projects who are in-charge of monitoring the completed or turned-over FMR subprojects. This serves as a response to the current situation where different restrictions are being imposed due the pandemic.

“With the use of the mobile OMAS, we could be able to generate a report regarding our monitoring activities and give our recommendations which will lead to the creation of online database for our FMR and other infrastructure subprojects,” said Engr. Freddie S. Fernandez, Rural Infrastructure Engineer of RPCO 6.

The pilot run conducted enabled the team to identify the efficiency of holding the OMAS activity using the said tool and find out its viability in terms of the projected roll-out among all other Local Government Units (LGUs).
The OMAS is one of the monitoring tools of DA-PRDP that seeks to identify strategies implemented by the LGUs benefiting from PRDP subprojects in order to maintain its quality and condition, ensuring progress to farmers and residents. It is conducted every six months after the completion of the subprojects. (April Grace Padilla, Writer, RPCO 6)