BAGUIO CITY – The City Development Council (CDC) gave some barangays in the city that have not yet submitted their list of priority projects at the most two weeks to submit the same to the City Planning and Development Office for validation and inclusion in the shopping list of projects under the 2019 proposed Annual Investment Plan (AIP) of the local government.
City Planning and Development Officer Engr. Evelyn G. Cayat said that the acceptance of the list of priority projects of barangays in the city will commence in two weeks so that the submitted lists will undergo the required validation by the concerned offices of the local government prior before these are included in the shopping list under the city’s 2019 proposed AIP where the priority projects for funding will be chosen from.
The City Planning and Development Office, as the Secretariat of the CDC, recently held its meeting to approve the proposed priority projects of the city government and the barangays that were initially listed in the 2019 proposed AIP which will be submitted to the local legislative body for approval.
Under the provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7160 or the Local Government Code of the Philippines, each local government is mandated to organize its own development council in charge of formulating short, medium and long-term development plans geared towards the overall development of the locality.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan, who chairs the CDC, urged concerned barangay officials to comply with the prescribed deadline for the submission of their priority projects to avoid complaints later that their barangays were not included in the identification of the priority projects to be funded by the local government and the national government next year.
He explained the priority projects of the barangays which were not funded in the 2018 annual budget of the local government will be carried over as part of the shopping list of the 2019 AIP.
Domogan requested the barangay officials that if the priority projects they identified for 2018 remain as their priority projects, then the barangay councils need to reiterate their request to the city government to include the same for funding in the 2019 budget.
Cayat revealed that for this year, the local government received from the city’s barangays over P200 million worth of priority projects but only P30 million worth of projects were funded under the allocations of the local legislators.
She claimed that for next year, funds for the priority projects of the barangays will likely be a little higher compared to the funds earmarked for this year that is why barangays should make sure that their submitted list of priority projects are really the needs of their constituents so as not to render their efforts in submitting requests futile.
The CDC is mandated by law to meet at least twice a year, or as the need arises, to discuss the priority projects that should be included in the list of priority projects of the city government to be funded or unfunded from the available development funds of the city pursuant to the proposed budget that will be provided by the executive department.
By Dexter A. See
