OPAPP seeks to extend peace program in Cordillera

By Carlito C. Dar

Sunday 15th of April 2012

BAGUIO CITY, April 15 (PIA) -- The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), on the request of the Cordillera Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC), is working for the extension of the government’s Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PAMANA) program in the region for 2013.

To set the plan in motion, an OPAPP team headed by Undersecretary Maria Cleofe Ghetto Sandoval conducted PAMANA CAR 2013 Roadmapping Workshop during the RPOC special emergency meeting here at the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) regional office here last Friday.

Sandoval, in an interview, explained that Cordillera RPOC, chaired by Ifugao Governor Eugene Balitang, passed a resolution requesting for an expansion of the PAMANA program to other insurgency affected areas in the region, outside of the PAMANA areas under the previously signed Memorandum of Agreement between government and the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA).

According to her, the OPAPP is leaving the option for the RPOC to identify the expansion areas and the corresponding suggested projects.

OPAPP Cordillera PAMANA Program project manager Anna Laylo earlier disclosed that P 67.1 million worth of PAMANA projects are set for implementation in the region this year.

The PAMANA program is the national government’s peace and development framework to respond and strengthen peace building, reconstruction and development in conflict-affected areas, with an over-arching goal to improve governance, reduce poverty, and empower communities.

PAMANA is currently being implemented in seven zones. Aside from Cordillera, it also covers Bicol-Quezon-Mindoro, Samar, Negros-Panay, Davao-Comval-Caraga, ZamBaSulTa, and Central Mindanao.

Sandoval also disclosed that for this year, the P1.76 billion allotted fund was already downloaded to the program’s partner agencies for implementation.

“The PAMANA program is moving right now through the agencies and what we, in OPAPP, are focusing right now is the planning for the continuity of the program for 2013 and to ensure that the projects that we bring in will really respond to the need of conflict- affected areas,” Sandoval stressed. (JDP/CCD-PIA CAR)