Albay 3rd district gets Php2B in projects from 2015 national budget By Danny O. Calleja LIGAO CITY, Jan. 25 (PNA) -- The 3rd congressional district of Albay has been allotted this year some Php 2 billion for programs and projects intended to improve the living condition of its people, according to Rep. Fernando Gonzalez. “We were fortunate that during the budget deliberation last year, this representation’s proposal for various programs and projects in the district worth over Php2 billion has been included for funding under the Php2.6 trillion national budget approved by Congress and signed by President Benigno Aquino III before Christmas,” Gonzalez said over the weekend here. Most of the allocation approved for the district, which covers this city and six municipalities whose economy are all agriculture-based, are principally intended to improve the farm and fishery productivity of its people, he said. Majority of these projects are infrastructure designed to address, among others, the nagging problem brought about by constant flooding that most of the time submerge some towns, disrupting the flow of trade and commerce and the farms and destroying large volumes of crops. “We are now in the process of making the entire district flood-free which was started in this city way back during my term as its mayor. With this fresh fund, we could start addressing the flooding in the municipalities of Libon, Oas, Polangui and Guinobatan by way of establishing permanent structures like concrete dikes and river control facilities,” the congressman said. Some of these municipalities are within the Bicol River Basin that serves as the receiving end of flashfloods from the slopes of Mt. Mayon and swelling of the Bato Lake in the neighboring town of Bato, Camarines Sur, during heavy downpours. Among these anti-flood infrastructures are the constructions of two boxed culvert bridge worth Php1 million in Barangay Iraya, Oas, to replace the two old small bridges that cause the clogging. Another undertaking called the Upper Bicol River Basin-Repair/Maintenance of Iraya Norte, Oas Flood Control Project will soon be implemented by the Department of Public works and Highways (DPWH) in the same municipality starting this month for an amount of about Php2 million, also taken from this year’s national budget for the district, Gonzalez said. “I am assuring the residents, particularly those from the Poblacion areas of Oas, that I am working hard to finally resolve flooding not just in their area but the rest of the 3rd District of Albay,” he said. Apart from flood control projects, part of the Php2 billion district fund from the 2015 General Appropriation Act (GAA), is the Php1.4 million intended for the construction of a multi-purpose building cum covered court in Barangay Cotnogan, Polangui town, as requested by its barangay council headed by Punong Barangay Isidro Oliva to be used as a post-harvest facility and activity center for the barangay. It will be implemented by the DPWH soon, Gonzalez said. The district also has allocations under the current national budget for small irrigation systems, farm-to-market roads cum palay and corn drying facilities and other farm productivity projects, without neglecting basic programs and services such as scholarship for the poor but deserving students, public health services, water system, disaster control, fishery development and tourism promotion, he said. We are not left behind in terms of national government attention because we see to it in Congress that all necessary projects and programs in the district that need government funding are included in the preparations of the national budget,” Gonzalez said. For transparency, he said, the list of these projects is uploaded on the DBM website in real time so that the public could review and scrutinize them, and for the bidding stage, all bid notices and awards have been required to be posted on the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement Systems (PhilGEPS). What makes the national budgeting system now more exciting is that congressmen need to do more legwork if they want to deliver the goods to their respective constituencies. “Since we perform dual functions—national legislators at the same time representatives of our people to the national government, our work at home is to find out what are needed by our constituents, especially in the barangays. We submit the list of these needs to concerned agencies which, in turn, will validate the same for inclusion with their proposal for funding under the next year budget,” Gonzalez said. It is as simple as that and congressmen can no longer involve themselves in the implementation of whatever project they recommended, except in the monitoring. Officials of barangays that are project beneficiaries are now the ones linked with the implementing agency, hence, barrio folk and national government workers are drawn face to face with each other making the relationship more cordial and mutual, the congressman added.(PNA) CTB/FGS/DOC/CBD/PJN
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 11:26:55 +0000
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