by Anjanette Vallejera-Nemiaga
DIPOLOG CITY, April 4 (PIA) - - The Department of Agrarian Reform –Zamboanga del Norte (DAR-ZN) under the Agrarian Reform Communities Project 2 (ARCP2) has recently conducted here a briefing on the rural infrastructure (RI) sub-project for the different mayors of Zamboanga del Norte.
The said briefing was conducted by Director Homer P. Tobias, ARCP2 National Project Coordinator of the National Project Coordinating Office. He discussed with the different city/municipal mayors, Municipal Planning and Development Coordinators (MPDCs) and the Municipal Engineers (MEs) the salient features of the project.
Tobias stressed that under ARCP2, the project’s service standard is “Mas pinadali, mas pinabilis at mas pinagaan” (faster and easier) implementation of projects. “This is the direction of the project for 2012 and the enhanced service standards for the sub-project implementation,” he added.
Director Tobias emphasized during the briefing the guidelines on Performance Based Grant System (PBGS) and the National Government Assistance to Local Government Units (NGALGU). He also presented the summary of approved sub-projects and those for approval wherein the total project cost for approval for the month of March alone ranged from P300 to 400 million nationwide.
As of this time, Zamboanga del Norte has already six approved sub-projects (SPs) amounting to P7.9 million, 29 SPs on the pipeline for approval costing P76.9 million, and 51 SPs to be prepared and processed amounting to P155.6 million.
DAR-ARCP2 in Zamboanga del Norte covers 19 agrarian reform communities with 13 municipalities and two cities. It has four program components, namely, the Community-Driven Development (CDD) which builds the capacities of farmers, ARC organizations and LGUs, the Agriculture and Enterprise Development (AED) that enhances productivity and creates opportunities and wealth, the Rural Infrastructure (RI) which links farms to markets and improves access to services, and the Project Implementation Management (PIM) to ensure efficiency and sound development management.
The project’s goal is for farmers to access to productivity and enhancing interventions and for them to engage in agribusiness and sustainable livelihood, viable and sustainable people’s business organizations to contribute to the government’s efforts toward poverty reduction.
This project supports DAR’s thrust to continually deliver intensive support services to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and other farmers in the different ARCs through the implementation of foreign-assisted projects (FAPs), providing a package of intervention to ensure productivity of awarded lands which may result in increased household incomes and improved socio-economic standing of the ARBs.
Attending the briefing were ARCP2-assisted LGUs with their city/municipal mayors, MPDCs and MEs, Regional Lead Convenor Floripes Lagutin, PARO I and Assistant Provincial Project Manager Moh. Dassan Adju, Overall Technical Coordinator Raul J. Sy and ARCP2 provincial project. (FPG/AVN/PIA-Zamboanga del Norte)
