BY LEIF V. DAHL
SANTO NIÑO, Cagayan (March 12)—Households in Cagayan’s poorest and most depressed communities will benefit from a Department of Science and Technology (DoST) project that will provide solar panels for free supply of energy.
Santo Niño town is among the municipalities to be provided with appropriate science and technology (S&T) interventions in selected conflict-affected areas and vulnerable communities of Cagayan, according to the department.
Some 56 households in Sitio (sub-village) Lagum in Santo Niño will benefit from the P300,000-worth of solar panels that will help provide their electricity needs.
The DoST project titled “Empowering Local Communities through Sustained S&T Innovation Strategies in Cagayan” aims to continually provide S&T interventions to communities like the sub-village of Lagum. The said DoST project started in June 2021 and will end in July 2022.
Under its Community Empowerment through Science and Technology or CEST program, the DoST inked a partnership with the Philippine National Police Regional Office 2 through the Cagayan Police Provincial Office in support of Executive Order (EO) 70.
Targeted to empower the poorest and most depressed communities in the country, the CEST program includes S&T interventions in health and nutrition; water and sanitation; basic education and literacy; livelihood/economic enterprise development; and disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
EO 70 aims to “institutionalize the whole-of-nation approach in attaining inclusive and sustainable peace, creating a national task force to end local communist armed conflict and directing the adoption of a national peace framework.”
Lagum is also among the beneficiaries of Phase 1 Water System Project, S&T Academic Research-based Openly Operated Kiosks or Starbooks and Department of Health-sponsored medical health kits under the CEST Program.