Travel advisories affect completion of review and assessment of Mindanao 2000

The completion of the review and assessment of the Mindanao 2000 both by the government and the private sector has been affected by the travel advisories issued by various embassies due to the ongoing conflict in Central Mindanao.

With the participation of the Australian government as one of the donor countries to fund projects in Mindanao, the embassy of Australia does not allow the team to visit all areas where the (Australian government) has programs and projects.

The team is only allowed to travel to the cities of Davao, Butuan and Cagayan but not in the cities of General Santos, Zamboanga and Iligan although request was already raised to repeal the ban inorder to come up with a comprehensive study. Participating the review are 21 government agencies and the Mindanao Business Council representing the private sector.

The review will run for 48 days on whether the plan has been implemented and properly funded.

Already on its 14th day of work initially finding surgaced that there are policies that are inconsistent citing for instance on food security where the Philippines wants to move up from agriculture dependent to industry. On food security aspect certain policies allow the country to import rice. Rather than this strategy it should adopt food sufficiency and focus on local production as well as subsidizing inputs like seeds and fertilizers to encourage more people to go back to farming.

The country's subsidy for buying rice is getting bigger and if this will continue there is nobody to farm and the next generation would not be encouraged to go farming. Through food sustainability government should focus on giving subsidy for production.

The completion of the review and assessment of the Mindanao 2000 would allow the team to come up with a development framework for Mindanao 2020

Under this framework emphasis should be on ownership of the plan by stakeholders to ensure that the programs and plans are implemented accordingly.

The Mindanao Development Plan was formulated in 1995 and will end in 2010 and with the new plan for the island dubbed as Mindanao 2020 those involved must be part of it.