Philippines National Forum Group

Contact:
Mr Nori T Palarca
Coordinator
No.63 20th Avenue
Murphy, Cubao
Quezon City
Philippines
Tel: +632 9200761
Email: noritpalarca2@yahoo.com or noritpalarca@hotmail.com



Network Activities 2005/06:

The network has established working relations with the College of Community Health Development and Management Inc (CCHDM).
- CCHDM is a community based educational institution providing subsidized tertiary education for comunity development workers and enticing professionals to engage in lifetime community development work in marginalised areas.
- The Philippines National Forum Group is currently engaged with CCHDM to help access donor assistance to continue helping poor upland communities in the institutions area of influence.

The network has established links with the Public Education and Awareness Campaign for the Environment (PEACE) Foundation, Miriam College.
- The Philippines Forum Group has generated interest within the Foundation to consider rural transport and development interventions in their advocacy campaign.
- The Forum is currently exploring possibilities for collaboration in applying rural transport interventions for communities within the area allocated by government.
- This link is important as this NGO can be a pro-active advocate for the focal issues of IFRTD.

Collaboration with the ILO ASIST Asia Pacific to conduct research on rural roads operation and maintenance in the Philippines.
- ILO ASIST AP published the outcome of the research acknowledging the input of Forum members.
- This activity helped to broaden the membership of the network.

Research on the production of alternative fuel such as ethanol, biodiesel and biogas has been initiated.

Conducted advocacy campaign on the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) in collaboration with ILO ASIST AP.
- HLURB is the government agency tasked with preparing loccal government planning guideline.
- HLURB has included IRAP as a topic of discussion within the draft guidelines of the Municipal Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP).

New publications were provided for the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCT) Library.
- The NFG donated ILO publications and other new titles to the NCTS library.
- The NCTS is the only teaching and training institution in the country that specialises in transport planning and development.
- Since 1993 the ILO and NFG have been working to convince NCTS to develop short courses on rural transport and development.