TAGUM CITY, Davao del Norte, (PNA) – Vice President Jejomar Binay recognized the significant steps of the Davao Integrated Development Program (DIDP), particularly in pursuing the government’s goal of attaining food security and alleviating poverty.
He said the DIDP has been accelerating the urbanization of the four provinces and six cities comprising the Davao Region.
“Congratulations for what you are doing in this pioneering program,” he told DIDP Board, during its meeting on Thursday at the Davao del Norte Sports Complex Club House in Tagum City.
Binay said such collaboration among the local government units (LGUs) is highly called for, particularly since the Philippines is preparing for the birth of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015.
As he puts it, the country and the LGUs for that matter, stand a better chance of taking advantage of the opportunities that will be brought about by the free trade between the 10 member-countries two years from now.
“Kailangan mapaghandaan natin ito and the LGUs have a very important role to play in this economic integration among the ASEAN countries,” the vice president said.
Binay earlier graced the grand opening of the Regional Rover Moot Eastern Mindanao at the Energy Park in Tagum City.
Chaired by Governor Rodolfo del Rosario, the DIDP is the only local government-initiated socio-economic cooperation in the country, that has served as the LGUs’ mechanism for sharing resources in the agriculture sector since 1994.
Through this trend-setting and longest-running local initiative, the LGUs in the Davao Gulf area has since continued their collaboration in pursuing the shared mission of eradicating poverty, preserving the environment, as well as, improving social services and infrastructure facilities.
It has also proved to be a very useful conduit of the Department of Agriculture (DA), particularly in carrying out food security projects.
Close to a billion pesos was released by the national government to the program for the implementation of farm-to-market roads, small irrigation development projects, and various livelihood and resource management projects.
As of January 2013, the program has implemented a total of 136 road sections and six bridge components or some 193 kilometers of roads and 128 linear meters of bridges, which significantly improved the productivity of about 47,000 hectares of farms in the region.