P2B earmarked for anti- Cordi poverty programs

BAGUIO CITY --  The national government has allocated over P2 billion in the next two years for the anti-poverty programs in the Cordillera Administrative  Region, Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas said Thursday.

For this year, Roxas said the city government of Baguio and Tabuk as well as 52 other local government units in Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Mountain Province will get some P809.68 million under the Grassroots Participatory Budget Process.

Under the same program for 2015, all municipalities in the Cordillera Region are entitled to P15 million each while the two cities are given a budget cap of P50 million, or a total of P1.225 billion.

Roxas said that the GPBP is a new initiative being facilitated by DILG in which project identification and monitoring of implementation are done by LGUs in partnership with non-government organizations and people’s organizations.

For the year 2014, the national government has allocated a total of P20.03 billion under GPBP to fund 19,553 poverty-alleviation projects that were identified by 1,226 local government units all over the country in coordination with civil society organizations in their respective communities.

The bulk of the P20 billion fund was sourced from Department of Agriculture (P9.286 billion); Department of Social Welfare and Development (P2.638 billion); DILG (P2.476 billion); Department of Education (P1.449 billion);  and Department of Health (P1.355 billion).

Other implementing agencies include Department of Agrarian Reform (P574 million); Department of Trade and Industry (P549 million); Department of Labor and Employment (P507 million); TESDA (P423 million);