KORONADAL CITY, South Cotabato (PIA) – Thirteen community-based organizations (CBO) in the SOCCSKSARGEN Region have secured over P28 million worth of contracts as suppliers for the government’s supplemental feeding program through Negotiated Procurement-Community Participation (NPCP).
On July 29, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Region 12, chair of the Enhanced Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (EPAHP), awarded contracts to various organizations, including seven dairy farmer cooperatives, two farmer organizations, two sustainable livelihood program associations, and two irrigator associations.
The CBOs will supply DSWD with rice, vegetables, and milk for the agency’s Cycle 14 supplemental feeding program.
Ibrahim Sangcupan, the EPAHP regional program coordinator, stated that these CBOs are able to secure supplier contracts with DSWD through Negotiated Procurement-Community Participation.
“In the entire Philippines, only the SOCCSKSARGEN Region has started employing NPCP as a method of procurement in line with the campaign against malnutrition and poverty,” Sangcupan said.
NPCP is a government procurement process that involves community-based organizations in the delivery of goods, services, and simple infrastructure projects.
CBOs such as farmer associations, irrigator organizations, Sustainable Livelihood Program Associations (SLPA), and beneficiaries of agrarian reform use this procurement mode.
According to DSWD Regional Director Loreto Jr. Cabaya, community-based groups’ participation “is one of the strategies that enable us to give chances to such organizations, to empower them, and to give them the opportunity to participate in bidding and agency business processes.”
The latest set of notices of awards and purchase order contracts comprises P4.42 million worth of rice, P13.06 million worth of vegetables, and P10.59 million worth of fresh milk.
CBOs that have successfully received supply contracts via NPCP are the Tantangan SLPA Consumers Cooperative, Ladifa Agriculture Cooperative, PPATTABA Irrigators Association, Inc., San Emmanuel Food Ventures Association, Surallah-Banga Communal Irrigators Association, Inc., Tboli Vegetable Farmers Association, AMAOIL, Inc., Malungon Dairy Farmers Cooperative, Pangi Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Sta. Catalina Cooperative, Sta. Cruz Multipurpose Cooperative, Unified Engineering Workers Multi-Purpose Cooperative, and Tupi Integrated Agricultural Cooperative.
In a response message, Jelly Latoza, chairperson of Tantangan SLPA Consumers Cooperative, expressed gratitude for the chance to participate in government transactions as a bidder.
“We are an organization of 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program) beneficiaries who were provided capitalization and other support through the SLP (Sustainable Livelihood Program) until we became a cooperative,” Latoza said in the vernacular.
“The SLP has really changed our lives. Because of the SLP, we are able to join the EPAHP as a goods supplier,” she conveyed.
Tantangan SLPA Consumers Cooperative has signed a contract with DSWD to purchase rice and vegetables worth P182,000 and P1.44 million, respectively, for hot meals for government feeding program beneficiaries.
CBOs’ delivery of the purchased goods will start in the second week of August. (DED – PIA Region 12)
