January 14, 2025

Emmanuel "Manny" F. Piñol

Official Website

What Happened To This SPIS Project?

Yesterday, my younger brother, Gerry, who is a Mlang, Cotabato municipal councilor, sent me two depressing photos of a completed but unused Solar Powered Irrigation System (SPIS) in Barangay Pulanglupa in Mlang.
Shrubs and thick grass had covered the area, proofs that nobody from the DA had visited the area since it was completed.
The metal plate marker of the Pulanglupa SPIS showed that it was constructed during the term of William Dar as Secretary of Agriculture and Arlan Mangelen as Region 12 Director.
Local residents said it was completed in 2020 but was not turned over by DA 12 to the farmer-recipients of the barangay, meaning it had been idle for over three years now.
Early today, I called up the Regional Technical Director of DA 12, Zaldy Boloron, and inquired about the status of the Pulanglupa SPIS but he himself had no idea on the status of the project.
Since the SPIS Program, which I introduced as a banner program of the DA, was launched in 2017 over 200 units were established all over the country.
After I left the DA in 2019, I received reports that some of the SPIS units were either not completed or not functioning.
The DA should form a technical team which would review the performance of all SPIS and similar projects all over the country so that the projects would serve the purpose for which they were established.
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!