DILG challenges LGUs to level up legislative branch

CEBU, Philippines —  The Department of Interior and Local Governance (DILG) Cebu Province is challenging the local legislative branch in the cities and towns to level up after the agency had a low turnout of entries for the Local Legislative Award.

Of the 50 target local government units under the said agency, only six LGUs submitted entries.

The provincial government is excluded from the count as well as the City of Mandaue.

"Gamay ray ni-pass kay gamay ra man pud ang qualified," said DILG Provincial Director Jerome Gonzales.

He cited that most LGUs cannot meet the criteria set by the department.

LGUs, mostly 4th to 6th class municipalities, failed to provide quality set-up and staff complement.

The DILG evaluates the performance of the legislative branch of LGUs through the Local Legislative Award.

It has three categories depending on the income class of the LGU and incentives are given to the LGUs with the best local legislative branch.

This year, the winners are Sogod town for the 4th to 6th class municipality category, Bantayan town for the 1st to 3rd class municipality category, and Talisay City for the component city category.

As incentive, the winning LGUs were granted P30,000 each by the Philippine Councilors League (PCL). They will automatically represent Cebu Province in the regional level on Dec. 7.

The other finalists were Liloan town, San Fernando town, and Carcar City which received P10,000 each.

Gonzales said that the award was purposely done in a gathering of PCL members last week (Nov 28) to challenge the local legislators to act and level up their performance.

"Honor ra gyud ang makuha nila pero mas matarong man ilang sistema kung mosubay sila (referring to assessement standards set by DILG for legislative operations)," he said.

There are six main areas focused by the assessment.

First is the responsiveness of the legislative agenda.

Gonzales explained this means that the legislative agenda complements the executive agenda set by the incumbent administration.

Second is the availability of legislative documents. Particularly for this term, all ordinances and resolutions from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2018 are indexed by subject, by sponsor, and by date of approval.

This criterion also checks whether all the minutes of the sessions and committee reports are duly signed and are available preferably in both hard and electronic copy.

Third is the effectiveness of the performance of the Sanggunian. It means that ordinances and resolutions are aligned with the three pillars of the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 namely enhancing the social fabric (malasakit), inequality-reducing transformation (pagbabago), and increasing growth potential (patuloy na pag-unlad). Still under this criterion, DILG looks whether there is a complete attendance of SB/SP members during sessions and if sessions are done regularly.

Fourth, is efficiency which means to provide quality set-up and staff complement. Gonzales revealed that many LGUs are still unable to comply that there should be at least one staff per Sangguniang Bayan (SB) member and a session hall which has the elements conducive for a formal session of an august body.

Also under in this category is the checking if whether or not the SB/SP has set internal rules of procedure and if there is people’s participation in the legislative process.

Fifth is the capacity building of the legislators and staff and sixth is the listing of legislative citations and awards, if there is any.

The provincial director said that this award is only given once every three years because it serves as a tool to evaluate the legislative performance. Gonzales expressed that he hopes more will qualify and join in the next season.

As for the DILG, the department aims to disseminate the award as an assessment tool once the new administration has come in after the May 2019 polls. — MBG (FREEMAN)