ILOILO – Vice President Leni Robredo is in Iloilo province checking various community projects of her office in several municipalities.
Without much fanfare, she arrived at around 6 a.m. yesterday and immediately proceeded to the towns of San Joaquin, Guimbal and Tigbauan in the 1st District. She also met with a farmers’ cooperative in Cabatuan town.
In San Joaquin, the Vice President’s Office funded a zero open defecation project back in 2018. A total of 224 sanitary toilets were put up in poor households in 85 barangays.
This helped San Joaquin achieve Level 1 status in zero open defecation in December of that year.
“Mahalaga ang programang ito para sa pagpapanatili ng kalinisan at kalusugan ng mga mamamayan,” stressed Robredo.
She welcomed the report that due to the zero open defecation project, cases of parasitism, acute gastroenteritis and other infections caused by the lack of household sanitary toilets dropped.
Robredo also met with the officers of women’s organization Angat Kababaihan, Inc. (AKAI) in Barangay Crossing Dapuyan, San Joaquin that the Office of the Vice President recognized in 2017 as silver awardee of its Bridging Leadership program.
AKAI showcased to the Vice President several products of their livelihood projects that proved helpful when the coronavirus pandemic struck beginning last year.
In Tigbauan, Robredo inspected a Community Learning Hub (CLH) that her office put up in Barangay Bagacay in coordination with the Sangguniang Kabataan of the town, municipal government and the youth organization EstrawngHeroes.
With youth volunteers serving as tutors, the CLH proved helpful to some 210 school children having a hard time studying their modules this pandemic.
The learning hub is equipped with computers, printer, wi-fi booster, and school supplies.
“Karamihan sa ating partners at volunteers para rito ay mga kabataan, kabilang na ang mga college students. Buhay ang diwa ng bayanihan,” said Robredo.
In Cabatuan, Robredo checked how a farmers’ organization had been doing after receiving in August last year several mechanized farm equipment such as tractors.
“Tuwang-tuwa kami nang mag-report sila na grabe ang tulong nito sa income nila,” said Robredo.
Farmer-members of the organization previously used carabaos to prepare their farmlands for planting.
“Sa isang ektarya, mga one week ang land preparation kung kalabaw ang gamit. With the farm tractors, two hours lang daw ang land preparation,” said Robredo.
She also welcomed the news that the farmers’ organization further augmented its income by renting out the tractors for reasonable rates – a far cry from the days when they used to rent tractors for their land preparations and had to borrow as much as P5,000 for the rental fee.
“Sa individual members grabe din ‘yung spike sa income dahil bumaba ang kanilang gastos,” said Robredo.
From Cabatuan last night the Vice President proceeded to Iloilo City.
She would be here until today for more project inspections in other towns of Iloilo.
“Happy tayo na ang konting tulong ng office ‘yung nakikinabang ang dami, tapos gumiginhawa ang buhay. This is very fulfilling sa part ng office,” said Robredo.
The Office of the Vice President, she added, has a monitoring system to check the progress of its various projects to see how helpful these have become./PN
