Road projects in ‘rebel-free’ barangays in Negros Occ. city near completion

By Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – The Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade (IBde) announced recently that road projects in 14 insurgency-free barangays in Escalante City, Negros Occidental are nearing completion.

These projects are in Barangays Alimango, Binaguiohan, Buenavista, Dian-ay, Japitan, Langub, Libertad, Mabini, Malasibog, Paitan, Pinapugasan, Rizal, Udtongan and Washington.

They were included among the 26 recipient barangays under the Barangay Development Program (BDP) of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) that have received P20 million fund each.

Under the BDP-ELCAC, these barangays benefitted various infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects such as concreting of farm-to-market roads, construction of additional school classrooms and health centers, electrification, water system reservoirs enhancements and communal faucets, installation of solar streetlights with complete accessories, farm tractors with complete implements and provision of fertilizers to farmer-beneficiaries. The farm to market road (FMR) under the BDP is 80% completed.

Brigadier General Inocencio Pasaporte, 303rd IBde commander, Lieutenant Colonel J-Jay Javines, commander of 79th IB, Engr. Joan Cabrera of Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)- Negros Occidental, and Mayor Melecio Yap, head of the CTF-ELCAC inspected some of the projects in Barangays Pinapugasan, Mabini, Rizal, and Alimango last Wednesday.

Pasaporte said the role of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is to support the NTF-ELCAC in sending out Community Support Program (CSP) teams to gather issues and concerns in these affected areas to provide the needed interventions.

“We proposed interventions in terms of development projects and these interventions aimed at addressing the root causes of insurgency such as poverty and lack of development projects, among others,” Pasaporte said.

The Army also will help assist the local DILG offices in terms of project implementation, monitoring and provision of necessary security support and assistance within our respective operational areas, he added.