by Robbie Pangilinan
Tacloban City is eyeing to get the 2017 Seal of Good Local Governance from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). The seal is the standard set by the national government to track the performance of Local Government Units (LGU).
“We have been preparing for this. I applaud the City Departments, which started preparing for the round of assessments since January this year, in coordination with the local DILG office. I am optimistic that Tacloban will get the Seal for 2017,” said Tacloban City Mayor Cristina G. Romualdez.
The DILG Region XI evaluators composed of DILG XI Assistant Regional Director Wilhelm Suyko and Local Government Operations Officers Evelyn Omandan and Ma. Ruby Batingal, visited Tacloban for the National Assessment and were welcomed by Mayor Romualdez, City DILG Director Atty. Darwin Bibar, city government officials and department heads. Tacloban passed the Regional SGLG Assessment last May.
The team conducted ocular visits in key city government facilities and offices to gauge the local government’s adherence to the SGLG Core Assessment Areas: Financial Administration, Disaster Preparedness, Social Protection and Peace and Order. The essential areas are Business-friendliness and Competitiveness, Environmental Management and Tourism, Culture and Arts.
Tacloban got the Silver Medal in the first run of the SGLG in 2012; then experienced a setback after the 2013 supertyphoon Yolanda, making it post-compliant in 2014 and 2015. Last year, the HUC passed one of the core assessment areas, Peace and Order.
Tacloban, which was recently named most improved Highly Urbanized City in a national competitiveness index, needs to pass all four Core Areas and at least one of the Essential Areas to get the seal. The seals makes the city eligible to incentives, such as the Performance Challenge Fund and access to other national performance-based programs.
Suyko did not find adverse results during the assessment, but hinted that the implementation of Nationwide Smoking Ban might be included as a critera in the next run of the SGLG.
