JAPANESE EMBASSY IN THE PHILIPPINES
THE JAPANESE government has turned over water supply projects in a remote village in South Cotabato province in southern Philippines, the Japanese Embassy said on Thursday.
The P4-million project set up three communal faucet systems in Barangay Kablon in the town of Tupi, which had one of the lowest rates of access to safe potable water in the province.
Japanese Consul-General Ishikawa Yoshihisa said during the handover ceremony that with the new water sources, residents will now be free from worries of contracting water-borne diseases and the physical burden of fetching water from long distances.
Mr. Ishikawa also led the formal opening of a Japan-funded P4.3-million technical-vocational training facility that will be run by the municipal government of Tampakan, another town in South Cotabato.
The new building expands the local government’s tech-voc training center that was built in 2011.
Approved in 2018, both projects are part of Japan’s official development assistance programs to support peace and development in Mindanao under the Japan-Bangsamoro Initiatives for Reconstruction and Development. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan