Priority projects

June 23, 2018 Ikit ng Bayan Opinion

Public consultation is very important, in order to develop a place for the betterment of its constituents. The province of Benguet, with its head officers, had a Seminar and Workshop at La Union just recently to come up with a revised strategic plan for the next three to four years intent to complete it before the end of the year, implementable by the year 2019, and so whatever they have agreed upon they will now apply it to their current programs and projects and try to go back with their existing projects before and see where the province needs to put its attention to and find ways to fast-track things so that by 2019 they will start in a clean slate since it may hold them back again while still implementing the previous approved infra projects.

Now, we may have come to notice that a lot of road is not yet developed in some places in Benguet and for the main reason that according to Gov. Crescencio Pacalso, “these infra projects are approved before I am the governor of Benguet. However, because the willingness to finish these projects now holds us back also to start and finish those projects that are recently passed since 2017 to 2018 and so in order to finish such is to encourage more engineers to bid these projects even with its small amount.”

Board Member Bernard Waclin also added, “There are really a lot of Small Priority Projects that only cost 50 to 250 thousand and so some contractor are hesitant to bid because there is a difference on the cost of the materials before compared to now and knowing they are more used into big projects.”

Example of this is a project at Takadang in which it is really far and expensive in mobilization for a contactor. Hopefully, the Engineering Office of the province will now come up with a strategic plan to cluster these small projects per municipality in order for one contractor to get that as his/her projects as one.

However, one of the main problems actually of our contractor in the province of Benguet is the requirements on the Rep. Act 9184 and that of the technical working group of BAC are strict because once a contractor fail to comply with only one paper automatically you are out of the picture already. Well, what can we say, it is all “due process” in order for every project to be transparent and reasonable for COA. We shall all abide with the law. In the Bible John 15:5 “Abide in me, and I in you. And the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” This is yours truly, Tita Ara Katter of 98.7 ZRadio that always reminds you “Ti Pangkaykaysa, Mangiwanwan iti Naranyag nga Pagsayaatan.”