STATE OF THE PROVINCE ADDRESS

2010-2013

By
Hon. MOHAMAD KHALID Q. DIMAPORO
Governor, Lanao del Norte

It is indeed an honor and privilege to be given a fresh mandate to lead Lanao del Norte for a second term. As we reminisce what we have achieved in the past three years and look forward to what we wish ‘to accomplish in the next three years, I enjoin my constituents and the key stakeholders of Lanao del Norte, not to lose sight of our long term vision: to become a globally competitive agri-industrial community of God loving, ecological conscious, culturally diverse people working together in peace and harmony to achieve equity and prosperity.

If you recall, our development programs during my first term revolved around the three point agenda: social development, infrastructure and rural livelihood; with good governance as an overarching development agenda.

In line with social development, our comprehensive health sector reform program is considered a huge success in three major aspects: ensuring constituents access to quality health care, upgrading the quality of hospital facilities, improving service delivery and revolutionizing provincial hospital operations to become viable economic enterprises. These initiatives contributed much to the continuing improvement in the health status of our constituents.

We were also able to provide support to the needs of special groups in our communities such as pre-school children, elementary school children, youth, women, senior citizens, indigent families and poor communities or barangays. We have implemented the following major programs either using our own local resources or in partnership with the national government and donor communities: Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or popularly known as 4Ps, Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program, Makamasang Tugon, Essential Health Care Package, Katas ng VAT para kay Lolo at Lola, Food for School Program, Early Child Care and Development Program, Kabarangay Sigurado Program, and Support to Basic Education Program, among many others.

My bottomline in pursuing rural livelihood as a key development agenda is to provide greater opportunities for rural folks who depend on agriculture to increase their family incomes. I hope that I would see concrete results on the following programs and strategies we have implemented to promote rural livelihood: sustained implementation of production support programs for rice, corn, vegetables and high value, aquaculture fishery production program, establishment of a mariculture park, livestock production programs, enterprise development and product promotion through the One Town One Product. We have vigorously promoted our province in two ways: participation in regional and national tourism events and hosting of big events taking advantage of our world class facility, the Mindanao Civic Center.

Much have been accomplished in the area of infrastructure. In was during my first term that big ticket, foreign funded road projects were fully completed. These are the 8.8 kilometer SBS – GMA Loop Farm to Market Road in Kapatagan and the 54 kilometer Metro Iligan Regional Infrastructure Development Project benefiting the municipalities of Tagoloan, Baloi, Linamon, Matungao, Kauswagan and Munai.

The provincial government has taken proactive role in implementing other major rural infrastructure programs. We have provided technical and financial support to municipal LGUs in the construction and rehabilitation of farm to market roads under the rural infrastructure component of the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP). Likewise, several infrastructure projects were undertaken through Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of Public Works under Congressman Abdullah Dimaporo’s Priority Development Assistance Fund. The projects include multipurpose buildings, a hanging bridge, hospital renovation, road rehabilitation, water systems and community facilities.

I consider good governance as an all embracing area of concern realizing that it is a basic ingredient for successful and sustainable programs. With development planning mechanisms in place, we were awarded for the outstanding performance of the province’s Provincial Development Council and its Project Monitoring Committee. Both awards were given by the Regional Development Council Region X. Provincial Government efforts of harnessing communication in advancing the reputation, enhancing the profitability and achieving stakeholders objectives were not left unnoticed. I received the 2010 Communication Excellence in Organization Excel Award from the International Association of Business Communicators, Philippines; the only LGU given the recognition with other top corporations of the country.

The province also received various awards for its participation in national and regional tourism events. Administrative and governance reforms instated during my first term include: streamlining operation of economic enterprises, computerization of real property tax assessment system, strengthening database for poverty focused planning through Community Based Monitoring System, capacity building for planning skills, strengthening of network and linkages with donor communities, civil society, business sector and other development partners.

In my second term, I will sustain the programs with positive outcomes and/or have achieved significant milestones and implement new and innovative ones to achieved the development goals cited. Over and above the capital and technical assistance projects we will be implementing, I will enjoin Lanao del Norte’s constituency to work together to evolve as among the best governed province. In a paper entitled “The Best and Worst Provinces in the Philippines: What Happened to Their Leaders in the 2004 Elections”, published by NSCB in 2004, Lanao del Norte was identified as among the top ten poorly governed province. Using the 2003 statistics, the province were rated on two dimensions: economic governance and administrative governance. Economic governance is measured in terms of the following indicators: per capita financial resources generated, per capita tax and non-tax revenue, per capita bank deposits, per capita expenditure on social services, unemployment and underemployment rates, poverty incidence and poverty gaps. Administrative governance on the other hand is measured in terms of: total health personnel per thousand population, percentage of live births weighing less than 2,500 grams, proportion of households with access to safe water, teacher to pupil ration for elementary schools, number of elementary schools per thousand population, enrolment in government elementary schools per 1,000 population, cohort survival rate in elementary education, percentage of housing made of strong roofs, percentage of housing made of strong walls, length of national and local roads per thousand population, proportion of energized barangays and telephone density.

While I am confident that we have improved much since 2003 where data in generating the good governance index was based, there is so much room for improvement as far as the indicators mentioned are concerned. Consider for instance the result of the 2009 Local Governance Performance Monitoring System (LGPMS). Using the electronically generated State of Local Development Report (SLGR), the province registered a score of only 2.72 which is rated as poor. Our excellent performance in health services was pulled down by the poor state of education, housing and basic utilities, employment and income.

If you look closely at these indicators, they are not the sole responsibility of the provincial government. Even though how vigorous our efforts are, we cannot achieve an excellent state of development for our province without serious governance reforms. In enjoin local government units to take the matter seriously. Time and again, I enjoin you to give your full support to make Lanao del Norte a haven of peace and prosperity, a legacy we will leave to our future generation.

Thank you very much and may the Almighty be with us in our endeavors.