PAMANA road project brings development to Kalinga

From the Philippine News Agency (Aug 1): PAMANA road project brings development to Kalinga

Kalinga Governor Jocel Baac is lauding the construction of the Allaguia-Asibanglan road in this municipality, which connects two barangays to the major arterial road leading to Tabuk City, the capital of the province.

“The road to development is the road itself,” Baac said in his acceptance of the 1.54 kilometer road project implemented through the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PAMANA) program of the Department of Interior and Local Government-Cordillera Administrative Region (DILG-CAR), channeled through the Provincial Local Government of Kalinga. The newly-concreted road connects the two barangays which used to be strongholds of the New Peoples' Army in the '70s and '80s.

PAMANA is the national government's program that extends development interventions to isolated, hard-to-reach and conflict-affected and vulnerable communities, ensuring that they are not left behind.

The governor related with the new road, communities now feel that "there is a government." He likewise predicts a rise in economic development with the newly-constructed road providing ease in the transport of commodities from the barangays to the provincial capital.

Peace and progress realizable

Farmer-resident of Barangay Allaguia Cresendo Ugyawi related that “peace, development and progress is slowly being felt in this barangay [with the road construction].”

"Before, we had to walk all the way to Bulanao (a barangay in Tabuk City) to deliver our produce," Ugyawi related. This was seconded by Emilio Banatao, village chief of Allaguia who said that the people in their village are forced to walk to Tabuk City as vehicles would not ply their route because of the impassibility of the road.

According to Ugyawi, this forced them to stockpile all their produce first, such as bananas and coffee beans, before travelling to Tabuk City to sell them. "There were even times when our stockpiled harvest would rot. This usually happened when it rained, as there was no means of transporting our produce to Tabuk and the road was not passable,” he added.

But that changed this year, sometime in May, when the connecting concrete road to Allaguia was finally done. Now, he says, he has found new reason to hope.

According to Ugyawi, now, they don’t need to stockpile their goods. "When we have harvested enough coffee or bananas, we could easily transport it to Bulanao, as there are now regular vehicles plying the route."

"This has increased our income and many of us are now encouraged to plant more, to produce more. This time, our sacrifices would not go to waste as we could easily market our products," he said.

Director Marilou Ibañez of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, which oversees the implementation of the PAMANA program, expressed her appreciation of how the road project is now benefitting the communities. “We hope to be able to sustain the development of more projects such as this,” she said.

Baac also added that more roads funded by the national government, such as the PAMANA program, are very much welcome, citing that currently, 33 percent of the roads in Kalinga have been concreted.

“We are progressing,” Baac said. The governor related that in 1995, Kalinga was the ninth poorest province in the country. “We now have graduated from Club 20 [list of 20 poorest provinces],” he said.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=668445