Regional dev’t council wants to identify projects

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Regional Development Council (RDC) in Central Luzon has asked Congress to allow local development councils (LDCs) to identify projects for congressional districts, as public outcry for the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund in the proposed 2014 national budget mounts.

The RDC, the region’s highest policy-making body of public and private sectors, made the call in a resolution issued during its reconstitution meeting here on Wednesday.

The resolution was sent to the Department of Budget and Management and the National Economic and Development Authority.

Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado and private sector representative Renato Romero share the chairmanship of the RDC.

“The presence of existing alternative structures, mechanisms and processes within existing legal framework can afford congressmen opportunities for speed, efficiency, flexibility and independence in attending to the needs of their constituents and supplement national direction in this respect,” the RDC said in the resolution.

Congressmen, it said, are members of LDCs according to the Local Government Code of 1991 and could be members of the Regional Advisory Committee under Executive Order

No. 325 creating the RDCs.

The LDCs at the national, regional, city, town and barangay levels were created by the code, which decentralized many powers and responsibilities to local governments.

Greg Pineda, officer in charge of the local agency’s development research division, said many LDCs failed to organize and function normally as required by law.

But he said the LDCs “can regroup and fortify themselves as effective venues for local development planning and budgeting exercises.”

What is needed, he said, is a presidential directive so the LDCs would be convened regularly as a new grassroots source for project proposals.

“[The] objective is to institutionalize a mechanism where project identification can be made transparent and systemic and not be entirely left to mere political whims and prejudices,” he said.

In Baguio City, civil society members of the Cordillera Regional Development Council on Thursday voted to sponsor a resolution condemning the pork barrel system.

On Friday, members of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance campaigned against the pork barrel at the Baguio public market before it held a rally at the people’s park in the central business district.  Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon