TACLOBAN CITY—Southern Leyte State University (SLSU) became the first academe in the Visayas region that will be involved in monitoring subprojects of World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Program (PRDP) being implemented by the Department of Agriculture (DA).
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been signed between SLSU President Prose Ivy Yepes, DA Regional Director U-Nichols Manalo and Southern Leyte Gov. Damian Mercado. The MOU signals the university’s participation in the monitoring of PRDP subprojects implemented in the province.
“We take it as an opportunity for our students to learn new things. Aside from letting them undergo formal training about the PRDP’s monitoring process, their specific roles and the application of the project’s science-based monitoring and transparency tools, they will also be exposed to on-field experiences,” Yepes said. “This will hopefully instill in them the value of quality work.”
Yepes said the participation of SLSU in project monitoring is a part of its exercise of social responsibility. It will be one of the major activities that will be placed under the university’s Extension Program and will be integrated in the students’ on-the-job training.
Southern Leyte is a recipient of various enterprise and infrastructure subprojects funded under the PRDP. One of the projects currently being implemented is the 19.4-kilometer farm-to-market road in the town of Liloan, which is the biggest PRDP infrastructure project in the country amounting to P232 million.
Franco Villaruel, monitoring and evaluation unit head of PRDP Project Support Office for the Visayas cluster, said under the agreement, faculty and students are expected to partner with barangay leaders of areas where ongoing subprojects are being implemented to form a citizens’ monitoring team. This team will monitor compliance with the prescribed infrastructure design or specifications, quality standards and timeline, among others.
Villaruel said that the tightened monitoring process under the PRDP is aimed at ensuring quality and timely completion of subprojects. Members of the monitoring team will undergo trainings on the use of citizens’ monitoring tool developed by PRDP. They will also be taught how to do geo-tagging.