Guv adds P100-M budget to augment ELCAC road project

From the Philippine News Agency (Feb 23, 2023): Guv adds P100-M budget to augment ELCAC road project (By Mary Judaline Partlow)

OCULAR INSPECTION. A team from the regional office of the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project visit remote Tamlang Valley in Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental on Wednesday (Feb. 22, 2023). The PRDP inspected the road in line with a PHP400-million proposed concreting project. (Photo by Judy Flores Partlow)

DUMAGUETE CITY – Governor Roel Degamo has added PHP100 million to the PHP300 million road network project that will connect four towns passing through hinterland villages that are affected by the Communist Party of the Philippines - New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) insurgency.

This comes as the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) and the Provincial Engineer’s Office, along with other stakeholders, undertook on Wednesday the first of a series of ocular inspections at a portion of the road leading from Barangay Dobdob, Valencia to Sitio Avocado in Barangay Talalak, Sta. Catalina town.

Provincial Engineer Maelene Jimenez said the governor decided to put up an additional budget for the concreting of the road network that connects Sibulan, Pamplona, Valencia, and Sta. Catalina because this is a priority project under the End Local Communist Armed Conflict (ELCAC) whole-of-nation approach.

“The PRDP team from Cebu is here to validate the road that the governor proposed for concreting, which stretches between 70 to 75 kilometers as part of the process for the funding allocation,” Jimenez said.

The entire road network will pass through the barangays of Datagon and Magsusunog in Pamplona; Enrique Villanueva in Sibulan; Sitio Inas, Barangay Dobdob in Valencia; and the sub-villages of Tamlang, Karima, and Avocado, in Barangay Talalak and down to Barangay Nagbagang, all in Sta. Catalina town, she said.

The Tamlang Valley, through which the road will pass, used to be a “no man’s land” in the late ‘80s and early ’90s at the height of the communist insurgency in the province.

Currently, there is a road passing through this area but when the rain comes, it gets muddy and becomes impassable.

Jimenez said the PRDP team would conduct succeeding validations and have a “walk-through,” which means that they would be walking the long stretch of road, as identified in the proposed project, to survey which parts have already been concreted by the provincial government.

Meanwhile, Jemimah Opon, Rural Structure and Bridges Specialist of the regional project coordination office of PRDP 7 (Central Visayas), said the validation would determine if it passes the PRDP specification standards.

Part of the PRDP team’s activities in Negros Oriental in the ongoing validation are social environment safeguards, economic financial analysis, and the Intensified Building of Logistics Development or infrastructure component to check on the current status of the road and the potable water system, Opon said.

The PRDP during the past two years also undertook the multi-million Hilaitan to Trinidad road in the barangays in Guihulngan City after Degamo sought its funding to address the insurgency there.

The provincial government has deployed heavy equipment to the Dobdob-Tamlang-Avocado area for the maintenance of the all-weather road.

Also present during the validation and ocular inspection were representatives of the Department of Agriculture, the Environment and Natural Resources Division of Negros Oriental, the 11th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, and barangay officials, among others.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1195895