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Eastern Visayas RDC tags anti-NPA projects as urgent

By Sarwell Meniano

January 30, 2020, 4:36 pm

<p><strong>HANGING BRIDGE.</strong> The hanging bridge in a formerly rebel-infested community of Kagbana in Burauen, Leyte built by the provincial government. The Eastern Visayas Regional Development Council on Thursday (Jan. 30, 2020) vowed to prioritize the endorsement and monitoring of projects meant to end the decades-long insurgency in the region. <em>(PNA photo by Sarwell Q. Meniano)</em></p>

HANGING BRIDGE. The hanging bridge in a formerly rebel-infested community of Kagbana in Burauen, Leyte built by the provincial government. The Eastern Visayas Regional Development Council on Thursday (Jan. 30, 2020) vowed to prioritize the endorsement and monitoring of projects meant to end the decades-long insurgency in the region. (PNA photo by Sarwell Q. Meniano)

TACLOBAN CITY -- The Eastern Visayas Regional Development Council (RDC) has vowed to prioritize the endorsement and monitoring of projects meant to end the decades-long insurgency in the region.

Meylene Rosales, RDC acting chair and National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) regional director said on Thursday they will make sure that projects intended to end the local communist armed conflict (ELCAC) will be the priority programs and projects for 2021.

“Within the first quarter of the year, government agencies are scheduled to draft, review, revise, and finalize the 2021 budget. We will ask agencies to include ELCAC projects in their proposed programs and activities in the next year,” Rosales said.

“Many lives have been lost. We have to do something together to end this armed conflict,” she added.

Earlier, the Philippine Army came up with a list of needs through their community support program, an initiative of the military to facilitate the government’s development programs by hearing issues and concerns of villagers in conflict-stricken communities and bring them to the attention of concerned government offices.

Among the issues listed were land titling, poor infrastructure, absence of water and electricity, poor health services, poor irrigation system, classroom shortage, lack of livelihood opportunities, poor access of farmers to market, high farming production costs, lack of toilet facilities, absence of post-harvest facilities, political discrimination, and unstable copra trading price.

The initial list of projects was also adopted as a priority by the task force ELCAC at the provincial and municipal level to make the New People’s Army (NPA) irrelevant in far-flung communities.

Rosales was upbeat that through convergence efforts by the task force, the region would be able to resolve the decades-long insurgency.

“Peace and order should have tailor-made solutions with all government resources available. We were told to realign budget this year and propose a new budget for next year to attain our goals,” Rosales said.

The formation of the regional task force operationalizes Executive Order 70 issued by President Rodrigo Duterte on Dec. 4, 2018. The directive also institutionalizes a “whole-of-nation approach” in attaining an “inclusive and sustainable peace.”

Patterned after the national task force, the regional body is composed of heads of local offices of the departments of the interior and local government, justice, agriculture, defense, public works, budget, finance, agrarian reform, social welfare, and education, as well as the military, police and local communication offices.

Also listed as members are the regional or provincial heads of the NEDA, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, as well as two representatives of the private sector.

The CPP-NPA, which has been waging a five-decade armed struggle against the government, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

As of October 2019, the NPA in Eastern Visayas has 506 active members and 447 firearms, infiltrating the region's 144 remote villages, the Philippine Army reported. (PNA)


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