BONTOC, Mountain Province – Some P301 million worth of farm-to-market roads (FMRs) funded under the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP) have been given the green light for implementation in several towns of the province.
Gov. Bonifacio Lacwasan, Jr. said once completed, the projects will spur economic activities in the remote villages and interconnect the sources of agricultural products to the markets to provide farmers with sustainable sources of income.
Among the on-going PRDP FMR projects in the province are the P65 million Banata-Sumey-ang-Sadsadan road in Bauko, Poblacion-Bantay road in Paracelis amounting to P40 million, the P102.5 million Besao to Nacauang road in Besao, and the P92 million Nacauang-Mabalite road in Tadian.
“We were able to address the problems that cropped up during the course of the bidding of the projects that is why the winning contractors were issued their notices to proceed with their works,” Lacwasan stressed.
The Besao-Nacauang road is an 11.7-kilometer road linking several barangays of Besao town with works ranging from concreting, construction of drainage systems, slope protection walls, among others, that will ensure the smooth transport of agricultural crops from the farms to the markets while the Nacauang-Mabalite road is an 8.933-kilometer road that shall be concreted and built with sufficient drainage systems and slope protection walls.
On the other hand, the 3.1-kilometer Poblacion-Bantay road and the 4.5-kilometer Banata-Sumey-ang-Sadsadan road have similar works of concreting, put-up of drainage systems, and construction of slope protection walls that will allow the free flow of vehicles geared towards supporting the agriculture and tourism industries in the said municipalities.
According to the governor, the provincial government will be aggressive in sourcing out funds from national and international funding agencies to improve the infrastructure development of the province that will translate to better economic growth even in the remote villages.
He appealed to the residents who will be inconvenienced by the implementation of the projects to understand the present situation and be patient because they will reap the fruits of development in the future as travel from their places to the urban centers will be far more convenient and stress-free once the contractors will turn over the projects to the government.
He expressed his gratitude to the agriculture department for having developed the PRDP so that less developed provinces will have a chance of accessing funds to implement major infrastructure projects in their areas of jurisdiction to cascade development to the countryside.
Lacwasan remains optimistic that the province will be receiving more infrastructure projects in the coming years because of the linkages established not only with concerned government agencies but also with international funding agencies who had been impressed by how the provincial government implemented previously funded projects.
By HENT