By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
That fact become even more evident during the World Bank (WB) mission to check on the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) last week which exposed glaring contrasts with the WB-funded Participatory Irrigation Development Project (PIDP). First, the public and open conduct of the mission. It was done in a hotel and apart from the main players – the WB and the Department of Agriculture (DA) – public officials and the media were in attendance. Days before the event, invitations were already issued to the media. Not only was there a press conference but the people involved in the project including PRDP team leader Frauke Jungbluth entertained the media anytime during the two-day event. In fact, it was she who suggested to me that if I wanted to know more about the quality of PRDP roads, I should talk to their construction people which I did but that is getting ahead of the story.
By contrast, the WB missions for the PIDP were clandestine. They were just affairs among the WB team, the local NIA people and officers of the Upper Chico River Irrigation System Federation of Irrigators’ Associations (UCRISFIA). No LGU officials, no media invited by the NIA. I was only able to attend their two missions this year through tips from friends who wanted the media to cover the events. On both occasions, there were no other media present. I doubt if during the entire duration of the implementation of the PIDP project there ever was a time when a press conference was called so that information could be aired by the implementers and issues raised and attempts to clear such were made.
The inspection of the Bulanao-Amlao Road and likewise the conduct of dialogue with the proponents of the Kalinga Integrated Coffee Processing and Marketing Enterprise on the second day of the mission were publicized so that everyone who was interested was free to witness and even participate in the two activities. I do not know of any inspection conducted by the WB and NIA officials which was opened to the public. The regular inspections conducted by the task force created by Governor Jocel Baac on September 2, 2016 to monitor the main project and the repair of the washed out section in Calanan was not kept secret from the public but then the difference is the absence of representatives from the funding agency.
The sense of pride of those involved in the program notably the Department of Agriculture (DA) in what they have accomplished so far and also hope in the expected positive impact of the program in the affected communities permeated the two-day event. During the opening program, videos about how finished PRDP projects have revolutionized the lives of their beneficiaries were shown. There were also elaborate presentations on the project during the program. The PIPD people and their counterparts in the NIA made no attempt to fully inform the public about the project and to think that it involves a nearly half billion loan of the Filipino people. To them, the least said of the project and the least the public knew about it the better. That was understandable because the project is one big anomaly and another ugly blot on the face of government.
During the open forum after the opening program, Governor Baac asked that remedies be made on the problem of contractors on the stoppage of pouring work during weekends which might lead to their inability to beat their deadlines for the completion of the projects. From what I understood from the discussion that ensued, the problem is that the engineers of the WB could not be present during the pouring and according to the regulations, no pouring could be made unless the engineers of the WB, the DA and the provincial government are all present and the engineers of the WB do not report for work on weekends. The implied situation does not exist in the UCRIS project. Why it took the governor of the province to take the cudgels for the contractors means there’s a healthy regard of the latter for the PRDP work system. This is alien to the UCRIS situation where the contractor could do what he pleases and has no respect or fear whatsoever for the implementing agency and for the work system if any has been set in place. I have heard that the workers of the contractors belonging to local tribes try to intimidate the PIDP engineers who attempt to supervise the work and the entire NIA establishment cannot do anything about it. In short, in the UCRIS project, the contractor and his people are in control, not the NIA.
Just imagine the contractor blaming the NIA for his (contractor’s) inability to install the radial gates on schedule which was in June 2014 and the NIA putting up with the crap! Had the NIA showed the contractor who is boss right from the start and made him install the gates on time, the unprecedented disaster which hit UCRIS farmers – the loss of the second cropping of 2015 – would not have taken place. But alas, the NIA, unlike the DA, is under the thumb of the contractor.** (To be continued)