The province of Davao del Norte clinched the 2026 Galing Pook Awards for its flagship agricultural and livelihood initiative, KAAGAPAY (Kawsa sa Agrikultura ug Panginabuhian sa Barangay) Program.
Governor Edwin I. Jubahib received the award from President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and Galing Pook Foundation Chairperson, Dr. Maria Fe Villamejor-Mendoza, along with nine other winning local government units (LGUs), during the awarding ceremony on October 21, 2026 at the Malacañang Palace.
Davao del Norte’s KAAGAPAY Program was named one of the Top 10 winners, out of 208 entries around the country, for its impact in fighting rural poverty and armed insurgency by providing agricultural inputs, technical assistance, and guaranteed market.
Gov. Jubahib launched the program in 2020 to cushion the economic and food security impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program has served 27,300 individuals through 1,046 People’s Organizations in 2025 alone, with members earning an average of ₱8,000 in additional income per year.
On his Facebook page, Gov. Jubahib said the program pursues his thrust of effective service delivery that goes beyond government offices to reach directly into communities so development could ripple down to ordinary Dabaonons.
“The Galing Pook Award is not the end of our efforts. It is an added motivation for us to further improve our service and help even more lives… Because for me, the greatest honor is not the trophy we receive, but the lives we change and the families we help,” the governor said.
This is the fourth Galing Pook award that was received by the Province of Davao del Norte for its outstanding local governance initiatives.
The province first bagged the back-to-back recognition by winning the 1996 Galing Pook Award for its widespread deployment of Trichoderma as part of its Sustainable Food Security Program and the 1997 Galing Pook Award for its Voluntary Blood Sufficiency Program.
This was followed by the 2002 Galing Pook Award for Davao del Norte’s utilization of the Minimum Basic Needs (MBN) Program in systematically tracking and eradicating poverty using localized data.
The Galing Pook Awards was launched in October 21, 1993 as a pioneering program to recognize innovative practices of LGUs, using the following criteria: (1) positive results and impact, (2) promotion of people’s participation and empowerment, (3) innovation and adaptation, (4) resilience, (5) sustainability, and (6) efficiency of program service delivery and transferability.
