The mayor of San Remigio in Antique is hoping to sustain the risk resiliency program implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in his municipality.
“I would like to see the impact of the program benefit my constituents even after five to 10 years,” Mayor Margarito Mission Jr. said in an interview on Monday.
A ground-breaking ceremony was held for the Local Adaptation to Water Access (LAWA) and Breaking Insufficiency through Nutritious Harvest for the Impoverished (BINHI) in Barangay Bugo on Sunday, the fourth recipient barangay of the risk resiliency program in San Remigio.
The local government allocated PHP300,000 to support the DSWD program, aside from the heavy equipment and cement to build the small farm reservoir (SFR). The project has 700 beneficiaries tapped to grow tilapia for their food security.
DSWD Western Visayas focal person Joy Ann Catherine Salbibia said the program will provide a 20-day temporary livelihood for the beneficiaries. SFR will serve as a water catchment for their adjacent farm lots. They will also establish vegetable gardens around the reservoir.
“We have already requested tilapia fingerlings from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR),” she said in an interview.
Salome Victoriano-Mader, owner of the lot where the reservoir will be constructed, plans to develop the SFR as an agro-tourism destination where families or tourists could go for their fishing activity once it becomes successful.
“We hope we will have a bountiful production to address the poverty in our barangay,” she said.
Beneficiaries Lope Buenavinte, 51, and Milly Villanueva, 48, were glad to have temporary employment before the June 16 school opening.
They looked forward to the program to be sustainable so they will have an income.
“I am really glad that I could have an income to buy the school needs of my children with the school opening,” said Villanueva, a housekeeper with two elementary school learners.
The other SFR sites in San Remigio are in barangays Barangbang, Cadolonan, and Vilvar. (PNA)
