Palace identifies 42 regions, provinces for priority dev’t

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration has identified 42 regions and provinces for priority development next year.

According to a memorandum issued by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad to heads of agencies, these regions and provinces would get substantial funding in the 2014 national budget.

Twelve provinces will receive additional money from coconut levy funds, estimated to amount to at least P120 billion.

The local government units were grouped into coconut industry development areas, fishing industry development areas and tourism industry development cluster.

They would be prioritized because the poverty incidence in these places is still very high.

The 12 priority coconut industry development areas are Camarines Sur, Masbate, Samar, Northern and Eastern Samar, Agusan del Sur, Davao Oriental, North Cotabato, Sarangani, Surigao del Sur, Surigao del Norte and Zamboanga del Norte.

The poverty incidence in these provinces ranges from 31.8 percent of families in Surigao del Sur in the first semester of 2012, to a high of 59.4 percent in Eastern Samar.

There are nearly 1.5 million farmers in these areas, more than 300,000 of them tending coconut farms.

More than 97,000 of these farmers receive cash assistance from the government under the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

“Dire poverty occurs among coconut farmers even while there is a huge growth potential from the coconut industry with around $935 million in annual export receipts and 5.2 percent value added contribution in agriculture,” Abad said in his memo.