DAVAO CITY—The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has proposed P833 million worth of farm roads under the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP), as the program enters its first year of operation after taking off from its successful forerunner—the Mindanao Rural Development Program.
Secretary Makmod D. Mending Jr., chairman of the ARMM’s agriculture and fisheries department and secretary of the Regional Program Advisory Board (RPAB), said on Tuesday the board approved the infrastructure- and enterprise-development projects for the three ARMM provinces of Maguindanao, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan.
The ARMM RPAB approved for endorsement the six farm-to-market roads (FMRs) in Tawi-Tawi amounting to P246 million, and eight similar projects in Maguindanao amounting to P459 million. The farm roads were approved under the infrastructure-development component of PRDP.
Mending said the infrastructure-development component aims at improving the links from production areas to markets to enhance the efficiency of transporting agricultural products.
Under the enterprise-development component, the ARMM RPAB approved a crumb rubber processing and marketing project in Basilan worth P127 million.
“The rubber-processing plant in Basilan will help regulate the price of rubber in the region and generate employment in the processing plant and in buying stations,” Mending said.
The projects would begin implementation and actual construction after they would be deliberated and approved by the PRDP’s National Program Advisory Board this year.
The town of Talayan in Maguindanao was the first local government to access an FMR under the program. It has a length of 12.3 kilometers and traverses five barangays.
The PRDP is an upscale program of the MRDP that ended five years ago. The six-year rural-development initiative is under the Department of Agriculture. It has a total budget of P27.5 billion for the entire country with project cost shared by the national government, the World Bank and local government units, mainly in providing counterpart efforts, including labor.