Manila, May 8 -- Three Mindanao towns have already committed to join in the "Balik Probinsya, Balik Pag-asa" Program (BPBPP), Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Secretary Emmanuel Pinol said Friday.
In a Facebook post, Pinol said Kauswagan town in Lanao del Norte, Malaybalay City in Bukidnon, and M'lang municipality in North Cotabato have committed to adopt the program, an initiative of Senator Christopher Lawrence Go. After Zamboanga del Norte, he said the province of Lanao del Norte became the second Mindanao province to accept the challenge to establish a model Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa Rural Resettlement Project, with the town of Kauswagan as the pilot area.
Pinol said Kauswagan Mayor Rommel Arnado, an organic farming advocate, has signified the town's interest to accept the first 200 families who would like to return home to the municipality or to any Lanao del Norte town. "They will live in a five-hectare housing-with-livelihood activity in Barangay Kudaran," he said, adding that the municipal government has already committed to provide gardening equipment, such as small tractors and tools for the first Balik Probinsya beneficiaries for Lanao del Norte. On the other hand, Pinol said an initially skeptical Bukidnon Governor Jose Zubiri has also expressed full support to the program after being assured of a "whole-of-nation" approach in the implementation of the program.
"When he was briefed that the BPBPP, which has been institutionalized with the signing by President Rody Duterte of an Executive Order, has the full support of 22 departments and agencies of government, Governor Zubiri was convinced and even volunteered to provide a counterpart for the housing project," he said. Pinol noted that Zubiri proposed a community of 200 families to be trained in vegetable farming and strawberry growing and relocated to an area in the vegetable production area of the province.
"Earlier, North Cotabato Governor Nancy A. Catamco has pledged to provide a land area and support services for the implementation of the BPBPP, which would bring home residents of North Cotabato who are now considered as informal settlers in the big cities," he said. Catamco intends to use the provincial agro-industrial park in the town of M'lang for growing organic native chicken with a complete value chain, Pinol said. "The area is near the M'lang Airport and the processing facilities so we could ensure the complete value chain process from production, processing to marketing," he said. "Next week, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) planning and technical staff will start engaging the four LGUs to lay the groundwork for the implementation of the project."