TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Rep. Allen Jesse C. Mangaoang wants the provincial, city and municipal governments to embrace the labor-based implementation of priority development projects in the different barangays during this period of the general community quarantine (GCQ) and the transition period to allow residents to be confined in their places.
Mangaoang, who chairs the House Committee on national cultural minorities and indigenous peoples, pointed out that since the government wants to limit the movement of people to prevent the rapid spread of the dreaded Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its possible second wave, one of the recommended precautionary measures is to compel local governments to implement their priority development projects through the labor-based approach so that the available work force in the barangays where the projects will be prosecuted will not have to move out of their places to look for sources of livelihood.
He explained that by tapping the available work force in the barangays where the projects will be implemented, the exodus of people will be minimized.
Under Mangaoang’s proposal on labor-based approach in the implementation of the priority development projects, local governments must realign the projects funded under their existing 20 percent local development funds to conform with the implementation of the projects by administration pursuant to the procurement procedures.
Mangaoang claimed that apart from ensuring the provision of income to the available work force in the barangays, the quality of the projects will be maintained because the workers will be implementing the said projects with a sense of ownership as they stand to benefit from the same in the long run.
According to him, the government cannot afford to always provide the heavily impacted families with relief assistance until such time that the prevailing situation will normalize thus in the resumption of the implementation of private and public works projects, local governments must make sure that the available work force in the barangays at the project sites are tapped and maximized to provide them with income.
Mangaoang recommended that local governments must make sure that projects under their 20 percent development funds should be implemented up to December because for next year, there will be new appropriations which could again be used for the labor-based approach in the implementation of projects to sustain the ability of the people to earn without forcing the people to move out of their villages.
He stipulated that the use of the labor-based approach in the implementation of projects is the contribution of city governments in restricting the movement of people in and out of their barangays to avoid them from being exposed to the elements that would result to their contracting the deadly virus and compromising their health condition.
By HENT
