Duterte launches solar irrigation in North Cotabato
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte welcomes his brother, Benjamin, and relatives who visited him at Bahay Pagbabago on January 31, 2017. PPD/Toto Lozano
NORTH COTABATO — President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday launched a solar-powered irrigation facility in Mlang town in North Cotabato province.
The project was introduced by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, who is a resident of Mlang, a booming agricultural town in the province.
The irrigation system will operate only by renewable energy and will supply water to farms of hundreds of peasants in Barangay Janiuay in the outskirts of Mlang.
The project was patterned from solar-powered irrigation facilities of farmers in Thermal City in Southern California Piñol, himself a farmer, recently visited for a study tour.
Security was markedly tight on Friday in Barangay Janiuay, which is near hinterlands in North Cotabato's Tulunan town, where there are enclaves of the New People's Army.
While in Barangay Janiuay, Duterte reiterated his hardline position against the NPA, asserting he has no other choice but respond to most recent deadly rebel attacks on state forces.
Mlang is also not too far away from Columbio town in Sultan Kudarat province, where NPA guerillas abducted two soldiers—Sgt. Solaiman Calocop and Private 1st Class Samuel Garay of the Army's 39th Infantry Battalion—on Wednesday.
Piñol told reporters the setting up of a solar-powered irrigation system in Barangay Janiuay is in keeping with Duterte's bid to provide farmers with free irrigation for arable lands.
"Time has come that our rice producers will no longer worry about the cost of irrigating their farmlands," Piñol said.
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