President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (Photo by Ryan Leagogo/INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. ordered the Department of Agriculture (DA) to give priority to farm-to-market roads (FMR), according to the Palace on Wednesday.
Marcos, the concurrent Agriculture Chief, asked DA officials for developments on the Farm-to-Market Roads National Plan (FMRNP) he had previously ordered in 2022.
READ: Bongbong Marcos orders DA: Create farm-to-market road masterplan
“We’ll have to assess it in terms of need. Where do we need the roads most? For example, roads that are heavily used that are not in good condition, but so many are using it need to be fixed,” Marcos said in a mix of English and Filipino during a meeting with DA officials on Tuesday.
The President told the DA to work with the necessary government agencies.
“We have to be in coordination with other departments as to where are the areas na gusto nating pagandahin, na gusto natin we will start planting high-value crops on this area, for example, kailangan lagyan natin ng FMR yan kasi gusto talaga nating pagandahin,” Marcos said.
(We have to be in coordination with other departments as to where are the areas that need to be prepared that we want to start planting high-value crops in this area; for example, we need to put an FMR there because we need to improve it.)
The Palace said the DA had completed 67,255.46 kilometers of FMR projects as of October 2022, 51 percent of the 131,410.66 kilometer target.