TABUK CITY, KALINGA – The people of Mangali and Taloctoc can now look forward to easier, faster and safer travel on cemented road.
Recently, the Department of Interior Local Government (DILG) has given the provincial government the go signal to begin the procurement process for the project to upgrade
and improve the main road going to their communities.
The project called the Upgrading/Improvement of Dalnacan-Mangali via Taloctoc Provincial Road is worth P95 million and funded under the Conditional Matching Grant to Provinces (CMGP) program of the DILG.
It covers the concreting of four kilometers of the 16-kilometer unpaved road leading to barangays Anggacan, Anggacan Sur, Lower Mangali, Mangali Centro and Poblacion, Lower and Upper Taloctoc, and Mabaca in the municipality of Tanudan.
According to the Provincial Engineering Office (PEO), the bidding for the project is scheduled to start on March 28 and the implementation may begin as early as April this year.
The upgrading and improvement of Dalnacan- Mangali via Taloctoc Provincial Road is the latest initiative of Governor Jocel Baac to bring development to the rural communities by investing in better road infrastructure.
As of 2017, Kalinga has invested over P246 million to build more than 20 kilometers of provincial roads through the CMGP and KALSADA programs of the DILG and was actually recognized by DILG Cordillera as the best implementer of road projects in the whole region during its
year-end Program Implementation Review (PIR) in December.
Other avenues the province has taken to fund much needed
road projects include the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) of the World Bank. To date, Kalinga has received over half a billion worth of financial grant from the World Bank to build more than forty kilometers of roads in the rural areas.
The latest project in the pipeline is the improvement of the Bado-Dangwa-Guilayon Farm to Market Road which is seen to boost the agricultural productivity and improve the mobility of the communities in the area. It is worth P222 million.
Recently Governor Baac consulted with officials of the beneficiary barangays and officials of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) in Barangay Nambucayan for the issuance of the required Certification Precondition (CP) and the Free and Prior Informed Consent
(FPIC).
The FMR project has since been issued the said documents and is now only awaiting formal approval to be issued by the PRDP within the month.
The Bado-Dangwa-Guilayon FMR project would be fourth infrastructure project of Kalinga through the PRDP since the program Launched in 2016.
By Iryll Sicnao
