Camarines Norte gets P246M in DAP

DAET, Camarines Norte—The Camarines Norte provincial government, a beneficiary of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) of President Aquino that has at least P246 million in projects to show, has all the reasons to thank the present administration for its implementation before the Supreme Court struck parts of it as unconstitutional, Gov. Edgardo Tallado said on Thursday.

Tallado, a party mate of

Mr. Aquino and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad in the Liberal Party, said all the DAP projects that were implemented helped improve the province’s economy.

Tallado said DAP funds were spent for the construction of farm-to-market roads and the implementation of a rural electrification program, solar dryer and multipurpose pavement, potable water system, barangay health stations and day-care centers.

With these projects, Tallado credited the DAP for helping reduce poverty in Camarines Norte, which, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) survey in 2012, has the lowest poverty incidence among the six Bicol provinces.

Poverty reduction

NSCB-Bicol head Josephine Chua, in an interview last year, had said Camarines Norte cut its poverty incidence by 7.7 percent, from 32.4 percent in 2009 to 24.7 percent in 2012.

Since 2011, DAP-funded projects for Camarines Norte have been coursed through national government agencies (NGAs), such as the National Electrification Administration, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process  (Opapp) and the Department of Agrarian Reform, Tallado said.

They were still tracing DAP funds in several projects that are still being implemented in the province through the NGAs, he added.

A list of completed projects coursed through the Opapp included five road-concreting projects in 2011 amounting to P140 million in  Jose Panganiban, Mercedes and Labo towns.

Ramon E. Baning, chief of Barangay Exciban in Labo, which got a P50-million, 12-kilometer road-concreting project, said by phone on Thursday that the new road brought significant improvement to the lives of the people of his village.

Before the completion of the road project, he said they walked for at least an hour or rode motorcycles to go to the town proper. It now took them just 20 minutes to reach the national highway, he said.

Tallado said DAP funds also provided  electrification to nine towns in the province.