KALAHI-CIDSS is people empowerment-MCAP official

By PIA Samar / NBQ
August 15, 2012

CATBALOGAN CITY – Marivic Añonuevo, Chairman and Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Account-Philippines said during a forum in Catbalogan City, Monday that KALAHI-CIDSS is people empowerment.

Speaking before members of the Samar Island Partnership for Peace and Development (SIPPAD) 20th assembly, Añonuevo hailed the way the different communities handle the different sub-projects.

“What is more important to us in gauging the success of the KALAHI-CIDSS Project is not only how many school buildings, day care centers or farm-to-market roads are built, but moreso in terms of how empowered the community people have become in doing these sub-projects.”

There are 14 municipality-beneficiaries in Samar which are in the advance stage of sub-project implementation.

The lady mentioned that on May 16, the MCC Deputy Vice-President Tom Hurley led the inauguration of a concrete pathwalk project in Barangay Bato in Paranas, Samar.

She also mentioned that on June 19 United States Ambassador to the Philippines Harry K. Thomas Jr. went to Sta. Margarita to visit the ongoing construction of a two-classroom school building which has a total project cost of P1.3 million.

She said that KALAHI-CIDSS is a community-driven development project that MCA-P implements with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

“As of July 2012, 1,057 sub-projects have been prioritized by Batch 1 municipalities, or those that are under the Makamasang Tugon stage,” she said.

Most of the sub-projects are for basic social services, such as school buildings, health stations and day care centers; and basic access infrastructure projects such as farm-to-market roads and concrete pathwalks.

“For our Batch 2 municipalities, around 95 percent of the 70 randomly-selected municipalities have completed the social preparation stage with the conduct of their second barangay assemblies,” the resource speaker from MCA-P said.