DAVAO CITY, June 27 (PIA) Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio urged members of the Regional Development Council in Davao Region to continue to work together to reduce poverty and to revitalize and to make local industries globally competitive in order to provide more jobs for the residents, consequently attaining an inclusive growth beneficial for all Davaoenos.
In delivering her final state of the region address during the last meeting of the RDC XI under her watch Wednesday, she cited all the efforts ventured by the group based on the direction set by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III towards inclusive growth and good governance.
She underscored that the gains in the RDC’s performance in the last three years were attained through all government agencies and stakeholders, in private sector helping and working together.
Duterte-Carpio said based on the socio-economic performance, the region’s total economic output based on the Gross Regional Domestic Product reflected a downtrend from 2009 to 2011.
She said the planned targets fro 2010 and 2011 were not achieved as identified risk and external factors like higher cost of energy and oil prices, small-scale miners selling gold to black market, slower recovery of the American and European economies limited options.
Duterte-Carpio also noted quality issues also impact on the export banana and changing climatic patterns continued to prevail.
She said even if the GRDP levels increased and rebounded Region XI as top economy among the six regions in Mindanao in 2011 in terms of value, the growth remained narrow.
“In the first semester of 2012, poverty incidence of families was placed at 28.6 percent, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from 2006 to 2012. Even then, the region’s poverty incidence remains the lowest among Mindanao regions,” Duterte-Carpio said.
She noted also that the Davao Regions capacity to provide employment expanded sustaining the 95 percent employment rates in 2011 and 2012.
Duterte-Carpio said it was an indicator that the RDC XI succeeded in providing more employment opportunities to the people.
She also underscored the success of the RDC XI in surpassing its target based on the Millennium Development Goals reducing mortality and underweight prevalence among children five years old below, increased elementary school participation and access to safe water supply.
“Efforts in these areas must need to be sustained but much is yet to be done with respect to the other development goals especially in curbing maternal mortality and improving children’s cohort survival in basic education,” Duterte-Carpio noted.
She said the RDC XI being the highest policymaking and coordinating body in the region, is able to pursue the development agency using public and private participation in areas like investments, infrastructure programs and projects, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, no habitation policy on geologically hazardous areas, policy directions for sustainable development of the mineral reservation areas of the region, support to the banana and coconut industries, and better access to quality education like the endorsement for the creation of the Davao Regional State University System.
Duterte-Carpio also underscored the RDC XI’s support to the enhanced K to 12 Basic Education Program and to address the job-skills mismatch, particularly in technical education.
She said that in promoting peace and development, the council facilitated the capacity building of eight local government units of Compostela Valley and 79 barangays in Davao City, facilitating selected line agencies and the security sector on conflict sensitive and peace promotive approaches in planning process.
“These stakeholders were able to identify peace and development programs and projects and the priority areas where these shall be implemented,” Duterte-Carpio said.
She also underscored that the institutionalization of the Davao Region Results Based Monitoring and Evaluation System aided in promoting greater transparency and accountability within organizations and government and provided stakeholders a clearer sense of the status of projects, programs and policies.
“This led to the completion of six bridges in Davao del Sur funded by the Austrian government in 2011, the releases of the fund for the Integrated Resource Management Program in Davao Oriental and the favorable issues on the issues and concerns raised on the effective management of the Francisco Bangoy International Airport,” Duterte-Carpio said.
She said one of the impacts of the RBMES is the issuance of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippine Central Office of a cease and desist order requiring all airline companies to use the aerobridges in the embarkation and disembarkation of passengers to ensure safety, security and convenience to elderly, pregnant women, and persons with disabilities.
Duterte-Carpio also said that finding solutions to power generation and depleting power sources for Mindanao were two major concerns closer to her heart during her stint as chair of the Regional Development Council XI.
She said that power remains critical for Mindanao even if she bows out of office on June 30 as mayor of the city.
Duterte-Carpio noted that the Department of Energy, Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Power Corporation and the National Economic and Development Authority Board-Infrastructure Committee and other concerned agencies responded to the Regional Development Committee-Mindanao recommendations ranging from the selective dredging of the Pulangi river to increase generating efficiency of the Pulangi IV hydro electric power plant, funding of the Agus VI hydro electric power plant and the Iligan Diesel Power Plant to its optimal operation power generating capacity.
She said the compounded efficient operations of these power generating facilities will contribute to the overall available power of the Mindanao Power Grid now and in the immediate future.
Dutete-Carpio also expressed hope on the interconnection between the Visayas and Mindanao grid, where surplus power from the geothermal power resources in Leyte will be passed to Mindanao.
She said that the RDC XI under her watch is able to come up a one-stop shop which makes easier for investors of mini-hydro power plants from five to 10 megawatt-capacity to get government nod to operate without going to the national agencies in Manila.
“Small hydro-power sources can also help in the power crisis in Mindanao,” Duterte-Carpio said.(RGA/JSD/PIA-XI)
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