NegOr Communities Complete Water System Project

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-7 reported the completion of a level II gravity-fed water system project in the municipality of Bindoy, Negros Oriental.

Simeon Arbas Remata III, Regional Marketing Officer of DSWD-7 said the community project proposed by four (4) barangays in Bindoy including Batangan, Malaga, Nagcasunog and Pangalaycayan got prioritized for funding by the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS), a poverty reduction program of the DSWD.

The water system project is said to benefit 938 residents in the mentioned communities, Remata said. He added that as part of the community empowerment process, the barangays of a beneficiary municipality would have to propose solutions in the form of community project proposals to the problems and needs of their community and lobby these for funding.

“Communities proposing their projects are one of the highlights of the community-driven development (CDD) strategy of Kalahi-CIDSS because the decision-making of service delivery of the government is now greatly being acted upon by the regular members of the barangay,” Mayor Valente Yap of Bindoy town said.

Remata said that due to its effectiveness in addressing community needs and empowering the communities to drive the development processes in their own localities, the CDD strategy of Kalahi-CIDSS has been scaled up into a national program now called the National Community-Driven Development Program (NCDDP), which will be officially launched in June 2014.

Negros Oriental Provincial Vice-Governor Mark Macias who also attended the inauguration activity congratulated Mayor Yap and his fellow chief executives on the developments of the municipality and challenged them to continue using the same process in their local governance and service delivery.

“Ipadayon nato kining maong pamaagi kay wala kini pamulitika; kung dili magtinabangay ang mga nagkalain-laing tawo para matuman ang usa ka proyekto (Let’s continue to use this kind of strategy because this promotes non-partisan ways; instead, people from different backgrounds are working with each other to complete the project),” Macias said. (With Press Release)