Yesterday, I received this good news from the Department of Agriculture that the Productivity and Poverty Alleviation Program started in the islands of Samar and Leyte in 2016 has resulted in poverty reduction in the region.
Called SAAD or Special Area for Agricultural Development, the program identified 10 poorest provinces in the country every year which were given special interventions mainly livelihood projects identified by the beneficiaries.
It is a very simple program focused on the principle of finding the weakest link and strengthening it.
The strategy could be compared to identifying the weak and sickly child in the family and giving him more nutrition.
The success of the program is mainly based on the principle of discovering what the beneficiaries are actually good at and improving their capability to undertake the projects.
In the mountains of Saranggani Province, for example, members of the Blaan tribe were given seeds of indigenous rice varieties and horses to haul their produce to the market.
This approach in focused intervention on poor areas was first implemented in North Cotabato in a group of villages in the town of Magpet when I was Governor in 1999.
When I became Agriculture Secretary in 2016, I introduced SAAD as a national strategy to address poverty and improve productivity in the farming and fisheries sector.
Today, SAAD is a national program funded sufficiently.
I can proudly claim that I designed the program myself and even prouder because SAAD became a doctoral dissertation of those who worked with me in the past.
As of 2019, a total of 30 provinces were enrolled in the SAAD program and all of these provinces posted remarkable reduction in poverty.
It cannot be said that all the provinces covered by the SAAD posted dramatic accomplishments like those in Region 8, which include the three Samar provinces.
There will never be a perfect government program because there are realities on the ground which could adversely affect it like corruption and local political interests and alignments.
But in areas where the program succeeded, it has been proven that with a simple focused program, lives of poor farmers and fishermen could change for the better.
That is the promise that SAAD holds and I am happy to see that this is being fulfilled.
This is the same strategy that we will implement in Mindanao as we struggle to lift poor provinces and make people more productive.
Of the 10 poorest provinces in the country, 8 are in Mindanao.
The objective of the program is to ensure that by the end of the term of President Rody Duterte, half of the 8 provinces would be lifted out of the ignominious club of the Poorest Provinces.
Then by 2025, which will be my full six years as Chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), none of the Mindanao provinces should carry the label Poor anymore.
That is the promise which MinDA has made and it will be fulfilled.
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