L-R: PCEDO Head Marvi Dela Cruz, Tarlac Provincial Governor Susan Yap, CFO Chairperson & Secretary Romulo Arugay,
and BaLinkBayan Project Manager & PMD Director Marita Del Rosario-Apattad
The Commission on Filipinos Overseas signed the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Provincial Government of Tarlac under the BaLinkBayan Project, making the LGU its 50th partner.
The CFO delegation headed by Secretary Leo V. Arugay headed to Tarlac Province to conduct the Data Gathering Workshop and Website Management Training as part of the BaLinkBayan capacity-building activities. Attendees were from different departments within the LGU as well as key regional offices with migrant-related programs services.
Ms. Marvi Dela Cruz, head of the Provincial Cooperative and Enterprise Development Office (PCEDO), together with her staff, warmly welcomed the members of the CFO team. She noted that the Tarlac Province-CFO BaLinkBayan partnership was already long overdue since it was halted due to the pandemic and other factors.
Dir. Marita Apattad then provided the participants with a glimpse of the CFO’s mandate, programs, and services, and briefly discussed the concept of migration and development. She also tackled in detail the BaLinkBayan project and how it can better assist the province in reaching overseas Filipinos and engaging them in various initiatives of the province.
After her presentation, the participants were divided into two groups for the capacity-building activities which include 1) Data Gathering Workshop, which was facilitated by Ms. Mayumi Kaye Peralta and Ms. Patricia Salvador, and 2) Website Management Training facilitated by Ms. Ma. Auxilium Obispo II. The first activity aims to inform the participants on how they can utilize the localized BaLinkBayan webpage as a tool to promote migration and development programs implemented in their respective areas and identify available and relevant data to form part of the localized website contents. The participants were also given the chance to briefly present their services for migrants. Meanwhile, the Website Management Training seeks to capacitate the website managers in maintaining and updating Tarlac Province’s localized BaLinkBayan webpage.
Following the capacity-building activities, Secretary Arugay and Tarlac Governor Susan Yap signed the Memorandum of Agreement, to officially formalize the partnership between two parties. Serving as witnesses were Dir. Apattad and Ms. Dela Cruz of PCEDO. The CFO also turned over a new desktop computer set as part of the BaLinkbayan agreement. Sec. Arugay informed Gov. Yap of the programs and services of the CFO, as well as the difference of the Commission with other migrant-serving agencies. Gov. Yap, on the other hand, expressed her gratitude to the CFO for seeking a partnership with the province.
To formally conclude the activities, Secretary Arugay delivered a short message where he thanked Tarlac province for accepting the BaLinkBayan partnership. In his message, he stated, “Today’s MOA signing is only the first step toward capacitating the local government to further strengthen its connections with overseas Filipinos and increasing the frequency of their engagements through a comprehensive one-stop online portal which is the BaLinkBayan website,” he said.
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