The Regional Development Council (RDC) said at least 188 major projects in Eastern Visayas are being prioritized for approval this year.

The body picked only the said number of priority projects for monitoring due to the limited technical and logistical resources, said National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Regional Director Bonifacio Uy, chairman of the RDC’s Regional Project Monitoring Committee (RPMC).

“We prioritize programs and projects to be monitored by RPMC based on the reports submitted by the implementing agencies,” Uy said on Friday.

The priority projects that are being monitored strictly include the “Yolanda” reconstruction activities; resettlement sites in Tacloban City, Eastern Samar, Leyte, and Biliran; livelihood projects; irrigations; social infrastructure; agriculture and fishery; road and bridges; roads leading to tourism destinations; roads in conflict-stricken areas; seaports and airports.

The project monitoring initiative by the members of RDC comprising of government and private sector is to ensure timely implementation of programs and projects critical to the attainment of goals in the 2017-2022 Regional Development Plan.

The official said programs and projects with substantial negative slippage and problems in implementation have been the priority for field monitoring and problem-solving sessions.

RDC co-chairman Roy Bernard Fiel urged RPMC to link the NEDA Region 8 monitoring system with similar existing tools of implementing government agencies.

“Our proposal was to create a technical working group to study the possibility of harmonizing all monitoring systems of all agencies,” Fiel said in a separate interview.

The monitoring and evaluation of priority programs and projects in the region most especially the ones experiencing implementation bottlenecks and projects worthy of replication is the job of RPMC.

The job of RPMC, which is the arm of RDC, is to forward reports and recommendations generated during the problem-solving sessions to the council for information and appropriate action.