MANKAYAN, Benguet – The municipal government earmarked some P1 million to pursue the concreting of the Bayen-Palidan farm-to-market road (FMR) in barangay Suyoc and Palasaan for the benefit of the farmers living in the said barangays, especially in the smooth transport of their agricultural produce from their farms to the nearest market without compromising the quality of their crops.
Mayor Frenzel A. Ayong said that the FMR has been neglected over the past several years thus he opted to provide the needed counterpart of the municipal government despite their meager resources just so the long overdue project can be realised to ease the difficulties of farmers in the transport of their agricultural crops.
Ayong, together with concerned personnel of the local government and barangay officials, conducted an ocular inspection along the 2.5-kiolometer FMR that connects with the Lap-angan Palasaan road.
“We will continue to find ways on how the municipal government can provide any counterpart to ensure that high impact development projects will be funded and implemented in areas in the municipality that need such projects. We are willing to provide whatever counterpart the municipal government can afford to so to bind concerned government agencies to release the earmarked funds for identified infrastructure projects in the locality,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
Aside from the P1 million from the municipal government, the mayor disclosed that other sources of funds for the implementation of the project is from Benguet Caretaker Congressman and Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement and Support (ACT-CIS) Party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap who committed P12.5 million and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) that allotted some P5 million under the flagship program assistance to municipalities.
Mankayan is both an agriculture and mining town where its upper barangays are major producers of highland vegetables while its lower barangays are the mineral-rich barangays with interspersed with some vegetable gardens.
Ayong revealed his administration will continue to submit proposed high impact development projects in the different parts of the municipality to government agencies that need funding to sustain the increase in economic activities that provide additional jobs and for the possible revival of the heavily impacted businesses affected by the impl
ementation of the community quarantine rules and regulations.
He pointed out that it is important for the municipal government to extend any available support to the town’s agriculture industry because it is one of the economic activities that flourished during the implementation of the Luzonwide lockdown to combat the spread of the dreaded Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the municipality.
Mankayan is one of the five first-class municipalities in the province and it derives most of its internally generated resources from its share from the national wealth tax and the real property and business taxes being remitted by the operating large-scale mining companies.
By Hent
Photos courtesy of Tiks Modon