LEGAZPI CITY, Sept. 11 (PIA) -- Two provinces, a city and 14 towns in the Bicol region were conferred Thursday night with the Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) or Pagkilala sa Katapatan at Kahusayan ng Pamahalaang Lokal from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) by pursuing good governance practices while providing better services to the populace.
In an awarding ceremonies last night, DILG Bicol regional director Elouisa Pastor led the awarding of this year’s SGLG citations to the provinces of Sorsogon and Catanduanes, Masbate City and the towns of Daet, Mercedes, Paracale, San Lorenzo Ruiz and San Vicente -- all in Camarines Norte; Camaligan, Canaman, Del Gallego, Ragay and San Fernando in Camarines Sur; Barcelona, Bulan and Pilar in Sorsogon and Bato town in Catanduanes.
Pastor said, "only 17 or 14 percent of the total 120 local governments in the Bicol region were conferred with the Seal of Good Local Governance since only these local government passed the yearly SGLG assessment based on the given criteria laid by the agency regional and national selection committees."
Sorsogon and Catanduanes provinces received P7 million each, Masbate City brought home P5 million, while the 14 other towns got P3 million each plus glass citation marker and
This year’s awardees received a total of Php 61 million which the recipient local governments can access through the Performance Challenge Fund (PCF), an incentive given to LGUs which come in the form of counterpart funding for local development projects.
Pastor said the SGLG was an annual awards program for local government that adhered to performance criteria in areas of good financial housekeeping, disaster preparedness, social protection, business-friendliness and competitiveness, environmental management, peace and order and public safety.
The Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) has replaced the Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH) in recognizing the good performance of the local governments.
To qualify for the SGLG, the LGU must possess the “3 plus 1” principle, meaning it must pass the first three of six core areas/criteria, plus any one of the another three, which may vary by LGU level and income class.
The first three of these criteria include Good Financial Housekeeping, formerly the Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH) that exhibits compliance with accounting and auditing standards, rules and regulations.
Second is Disaster Preparedness requires citation in the Gawad KALASAG for Best Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council or having structures, plans and systems in place for disaster preparedness.
Social Protection, being the third, requires sensitivity to the needs of vulnerable sectors like women, children, senior citizens, indigenous peoples and persons with disability (PWD), among others.
The other three criteria, one of which may be picked by the local governments as additional to the three “must” criteria may include Business-friendliness and Competitiveness that demonstrates good performance in business promotion as a result of having a simplified business processing and licensing system.
The other is Environmental Management that displays substantial efforts in safeguarding the integrity of the environment with the initial focus of compliance with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
While Peace and Order that shows considerable efforts in maintaining peace and order in the community by adopting a Local Anti-Criminality Action Plan or Peace and Order Council Action Plan.
Pastor furthered that a total of 254 local governments passed the SGLG assessment nationwide, already including the 17 from Bicol.
The 17 local government passed and were given “Green” scorecards in the three Basic Core Seal and one of the additional criteria, where the local government can excelled in one or all ot them. (MAL-PIA5/Albay)