Gov’t touts farm roads built
THE PHILIPPINE government has built around 67,328.92 kilometers of farm-to-market roads last year, which is more than half of its goal of building 131,410.66 km in six years, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. said on Monday.
“It is a testament to the magnitude of accomplishment of the government,” he said in a video posted on his Instagram account. “It is a connection between all the different communities, but of course its main purpose is to connect the markets and the producers — to our agricultural sectors.”
He said the past year’s accomplishments amount to about 51% of the administration’s goal to build over 131,000 km of farm-to-market roads in his six-year term.
Last November, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said it had won technical approval for building modular steel bridges for farm-to-market roads. The project would cost P28.23 billion to implement.
Lawmakers had allotted over P17.27 billion in this year’s P5.768-trillion national budget to build these roads. Congress also included about P31 billion to aid farmers implement projects to boost rice production. — John Victor D. Ordoñez