BAGUIO CITY – Priority projects intended to reduce poverty incidence in the city of Baguio were recently approved by the city council for funding and implementation by the line agencies in 2017.
Topping the five priority poverty reduction projects to be funded by the city government here for bottom-up budgeting (BuB) include the maintenance of the Mushroom Laboratory and Organic Fertilizer such as the continuity of the fruit bags production, equipments of the Mushroom Laboratory and the packing of organic fertilizer at Irisan barangay with funding requirement of one million.
P500,000 will be used for the BuB operations and management budget.
The Baguio Day Care Center for the elderly with special needs (under the BuB) protective services facility for elderly 2017) for the conduct of regular day activities for the elderly with special needs at the Senior Citizen Center Salud Mitra barangay with three million funding requirement.
The rehabilitation and repair of the PFVR building so as to accommodate a One Stop Pasalubong Center amounting to 3.5 million.
Support to the elimination of human trafficking in the city in all the 128 barangays with funding requirement of one million.
On the other hand, projects within the BuB menu programs are the capability building for civil Society Organizations by the National Anti-Poverty Commission; protective services-programs and services by the Department of Social Welfare and Development at Irisan; Community-Based Monitoring System-Accelerated Poverty Profiling (CBMS-APP) Department of Interior and Local Government; core local road by the DILG along Mines View, Magsaysay, Loakan Proper and connecting Adiwang Rd. to Balacbac Rd.; technical and vocational skills programs/technical vocational sills mobile training program and the training and certification of persons with Disabilities, Women Sector and Out-of-School Youths on Hilot (wellness massage)/massage therapy by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority; and the protective services for women and girls in Especially Difficult Circumstances (Domestic Violence Victim-Survivors) and solo parents to be implemented by the DSWD together with CSO-Save Our Women and Inter-Agency Committee on anti-Trafficking and Violence against Women and Children (IACAT-VAWC).
While projects outside the menu proposals are the protection of the Camp 8 watershed like survey of the perimeter including inventory of improvements of the watershed, capability building (forest protection), fencing of 470 linear meters of perimeter of watershed, seedling propagation, planting and nurturing and employing forest guards and capacitate them on forest protection amounting to three million.
Project on evacuation facility at barangays Pacdal, Gibraltar, Mines View, Pucsusan and Lualhati with funding requirement of two million.
However, it has been observed by the City Poverty Reduction Action Team (CPRAT) that significant number of priority projects are not being implemented which affected the accomplishment of the city.
The city government here has also expressed its predicament in the implementation of the projects because of the some lapses of national agencies.
Accordingly, the CPRAT will convene soon to thresh out possible solutions for the proper implementation of priority projects by the lines agencies, otherwise, national agencies who will not implement the identified projects will be blacklisted by the CPRAT.
In as much as the city government here wants to implement the identified priority projects, it is not viable considering that some national agencies cannot provide the funds needed for the said projects. /Jho Arranz
