PR/via Daniel Manalastas – PTV News
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar expressed confidence that the Duterte administration is able to mitigate poverty in Northern Mindanao with the launch of an anti-insurgency program.
During his meeting with the Cagayan de Oro Press Club on Thursday, June 27, 2019, Secretary Andanar shared the government’s new efforts to address poverty and issues of insurgency in the country through the newly-formed Cabinet Officers for Regional Development and Security (CORDS).
“The purpose of this is to accelerate the development of our barangays here in Region X — to end the local communist armed conflict,” Sec. Andanar said, who was designated as the CORDS for Region X.
Andanar said that CORDS Region X is set to make history, as it is the first region to launch a banner program in addressing the root causes of internal armed conflict and insurgency called Convergence Areas for Peace and Development (CAPDev).
“The CORDS here in Region X is one of the most active CORDS in the entire country…Tomorrow will be the first time that the CORDS will be meeting and presiding. both the Regional Development Council (RDC) and Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC),” Sec. Andanar said.
The CAPDev program aims to promote the establishment of durable peace and development while empowering communities in the priority focus areas through peacebuilding and reconciliation, socio-economic transformation, good governance, and institution building.
The program espouses a focused, coordinated, and sustained delivery of the government’s basic services as well as social development packages in poor, conflict-affected and geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas in the region.
“We are very confident that under the Duterte Administration we will be able to lessen and we will be able to address the poverty problems of the region,” Andanar said.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte approved an executive order (EO) earlier this month formalizing the designation of Cabinet secretaries as CORDS.
Under the CORDS initiative, Cabinet members may be assigned to discharge their functions, duties, and responsibilities to a particular region in addition to their regular duties.
An offshoot of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), CORDS is committed to take a whole-of-nation approach to address the issues of insurgency in the country.
Andanar said that the CAPDev will be launched in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon, to be joined by the NTF-ELCAC co-chair Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo M. Año, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Sec. Rolando Bautista, National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Region X Dir. Mylah Faye Aurora B. Cariño, Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno, and Bukidnon Governor Jose Maria Zubiri Jr., Regional Task Force- ELCAC chair BGen Franco Nemecio M. Gacal.
