By Jean Duron-Abangan

Tagum City (8 September) -- The convergence of national and local government agencies is fueling Monkayo's jewelry-making which gets the town to vie for this year's One-Town One-Product (OTOP) Best Implementer national award.

Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Compostela Valley Program Manager Nelly Esperanza, in an interview gave credit to a number of national line agencies and local government offices for the OTOP awards that the jewelry-making industry of Monkayo had grabbed at the provincial and regional levels.

She said the local government of Monkayo together with the provincial government of Compostela had given priority and due attention to nurture the town's newly developed business and trade venture which emerged as the upstream industry sprouting from mining in Mt. Diwalwal.

"They assigned a point person for the jewelry-making project and established a jewelry-making center to train people and equip them with skills in jewelry making," she said.

Esperanza also took note of the assistance poured into the jewelry-making project of Monkayo through the alliance of national line agencies based Compostela Valley particularly the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

She gave due credit to the Program Monitoring and Coordinating Center of the National Task Force Diwalwal (PMMC-NTFD) for providing funds that DTI-Comval utilized in extending market assistance, entrepreneurial skills training, and consultancy to members of the jewelry-making cooperative based in Monkayo.

PMCC is the regional group of national line agencies under the National Task Force Diwalwal tasked by the national government to provide needed interventions so law and order would be established in the once strife-torn gold-rush Mt. Diwalwal and development would be introduced in the area.

DTI-Comval, TESDA-Comval and DOLE are members of the Socio-Economic Task Group working under the PMCC-NTFD.

Esperenza explained that DTI's involvement to the Socio-Economic Task Group is geared towards value-adding the gold ore and silver by-products of the mining operation in Mt. Diwalwal.

In a report submitted to PMCC-NTFD, DTI-Compostela Valley enumerated a number of trade fairs and product exhibits during which it assisted the Diwalwal Artisan and Entrepreneurs Coop (DARTECO's) participation.