A special cabinet meeting and executive consultation involving top
officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and provincial
government of Lanao del Sur was held here on February 22 to map out an
anti-poverty strategy to remove Lanao del Sur from the list of poorest
provinces in the country.
Data from the Philippine Statistics
Authority in the first quarter of 2015 showed that Lanao del Sur was the
poorest province in the country with 74.3 percent poverty incidence.
Presided by the ARMM Vice Governor
Haroun Alrashid Lucman Jr., the consultation discussed areas where they could
improve and have better focus in the coming months.
Lucman said it was the first in a
series of provincial consultations to be conducted by the regional government
this year in the five ARMM provinces.
Lanao del Sur Vice Governor Mamintal
Adiong, Anak Mindanao Representative Atty. Makmod Mending Jr., and the
province’s local chief executives were present during the consultation.
Provincial line agency heads also presented
their agency accomplishments for 2016 as well as the status of on-going
projects.
The Integrated Provincial Health
Office reported improvements in health statistics for such as maternal
mortality rate which dropped from 81 in 2009 to only five in 2016; decrease
in infant mortality rate from four to 1.46; drop in malnutrition among
children from 15.20 percent to 5.65 percent; increase in tuberculosis cure rate
to 83 percent and, increase of immunization for children to 86.84 percent, the
highest in the region.
Regional Health Secretary Kadil
Sinolinding said these improvements in the health sector are credited to
improved facilities development and increased deployment of health
professionals in all the provinces of the region.
ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman, who was
present in the consultation meeting, encouraged Department of Agriculture in
the province to work on expanding the agriculture coverage and making the
province rice sufficient by 2019.
Hataman also urged officials of the
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to expedite the bidding
process on partner conduit to speed up the payout process of the Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
The two districts of Lanao del Sur
with combined 92,191 program beneficiaries have not received the amounts due
them since last year due to the absence of a partner conduit that will serve
the beneficiaries.
DSWD-ARMM Assistant Secretary
Pombaen Karon Kader said no bidder participated in the last year’s call for a
partner conduit, which was the reason why the agency’s central office has not
downloaded the program’s funds for the province.
The Humanitarian Development
Action Plan (HDAP) was also discussed as a special program that will cover the
conflict-affected town of Butig.
ARMM-HDAP is a program of the
regional government under the Hataman administration that implements various
government initiatives.
These include relief, rehabilitation
and reconstruction of both horizontal and vertical infrastructures such as
school buildings, houses, health centers, roads and bridges. The program also
covers livelihood projects that will promote peace and order and help improve
the economic situation in calamity-affected communities. (BPI/PIA Lanao del
Sur)
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