Impact programs and bigger allocations for provinces in the 11-month finale of the Aquino presidency get launched and presented in the governor’s general assembly at Ortigas Center in Pasig City tomorrow.
Topping the agenda is the hugely beneficial Provincial Road Network Development Program (PRNDP) championed no less by Gov. Edgar Chatto and strongly endorsed by the entire League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP).
Also known as the KALSADA Program, the PRNDP, which has a test year budget of P6.5 billion, will be presented in the launching by Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Sec. Mar Roxas and Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Sec. Butch Abad.
This is a milestone infrastructure policy that provides annual national allocations to rehabilitate and improve local roads with LGU counterparts, effectively reducing the local financial burden.
Because the local road works no more solely rely on local funds, the LGUs can, therefore, save for other essential concerns like health, education, agriculture, livelihood, etcetera, Chatto said.
The national incentive program for local road management is another legacy commitment of Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III hoped for pioneering implementation in his term’s finishing stretch to June 2016.
Yesterday, Aquino suddenly showed up at the Gloria Maris in Greenhills for the luncheon, which was not in his official schedule, tendered by the Liberal Party (LP) for Roxas as its 2016 standard bearer.
Chatto, fellow governors and other LP stalwarts from across the country also appeared in the show of support for Roxas.
Other Bohol LP bigwigs in the affair were Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim and Board Members Venzencio Arcamo and Romulo Cepedoza, the provincial federation president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC).
In tomorrow’s assembly, the governors will also discuss with the DILG and DBM secretaries the provincial bottom-up budgeting (BUB) implementation guidelines.
From the current P11 billion, the BUB has been enlarged to over P24 billion as likewise strongly lobbied for by Chatto’s league with the support of all other local government leagues in the country.
The doubly-increased BUB budget is expected to address as many more priorities identified by the lower LGUs themselves, particularly barangays from where the process of bottom-up budgeting precisely starts.
Chatto said their league will tackle such other major programs and concerns as the Senior High School Program in the presence of Department of Education (DepEd) Sec. Armin Luistro and special patent for LGU lands.
On capacitating local health programs, the league will sign a memorandum of agreement with the Philippine College of Surgeons.
This can enhance health services thru surgical missions in Bohol, where the provincial government again sponsored just in July another batch of free heart operations and, this September, bungi surgeries. (Ven rebo Arigo)