THE Philippines will shortly implement development projects funded by the Japanese government in support of the campaign against illegal drugs and promotion of agribusiness investments in Mindanao.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, in a recent meeting in Tokyo with top officials of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, said the Philippine government was expecting to immediately begin construction of drug rehabilitation centers through a Jica grant amounting to 1.85 billion yen.
Another Jica-funded initiative—Harnessing Agribusiness Opportunities through Robust and Vibrant Entrepreneurship Supportive of Peaceful Transformation, or Harvest, Project in Mindanao—is now on the final stages of securing all the requirements necessary to formalize an agreement between the Department of Finance and the Land Bank of the Philippines, which will implement the project.
“We are grateful that Japan is also supporting our campaign against illegal drugs by providing a Jica grant to the Department of Health for the treatment and rehabilitation of illegal drug users,” a department statement over the weekend quoted Dominguez as saying in the meeting with Jica officials.
“We hope to immediately implement the 1.850 billion yen grant to construct drug rehabilitation centers,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez said the grant, equivalent to $16 million, “is the first of its kind from Japan to the Philippines that is of a budgetary support in nature.”
The 1.85-billion yen grant forms part of the 3.8-billion yen ($33 million) Jica grant to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s programs to win the war against illegal drugs, improve public security and its counterterrorism efforts, and forge lasting peace and development in Mindanao.
On the Mindanao-Harvest Project, Dominguez told Jica “we are now finalizing the LBP-DOF memorandum of agreement and we expect to secure all requirements for the MOA to take effect by middle of next month.”
The LandBank and the Japanese government signed a loan agreement worth almost 5 billion yen to fund the five-year Harvest project in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and other conflict areas in the southern Philippines during the official visit of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Philippines in January.
The 4.93-billion yen loan deal for the Harvest project was signed by LandBank president and CEO Alex Buenaventura and Jica chief representative to the Philippines Susumu Ito.
The Jica loan will mature in 25 years, inclusive of a seven-year grace period with an interest rate of 1.4 percent a year.
On top of the proposed loan, Jica plan to provide a technical grant of about $6 million (about P290 million) to support the capacity building of eligible beneficiaries of Harvest and LandBank’s management of the project.
Harvest, which will be implemented by LandBank from 2017 to 2022, aims to open a lending window for agribusiness ventures and other related investments in ARMM and other conflict areas in Mindanao.