CLARK FREEPORT\u2014It was how he would have wanted it.
\nNew Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II channeled his predecessor, the late Jesse Robredo, last week as he handed out to local governments in Central Luzon awards that were decided upon before Robredo was killed in a plane crash in August.
\n\u201cThe assessment of, grading and decision to give recognition to these top performing local governments were made during [the watch of] Secretary Jesse,\u201d Roxas told reporters on Wednesday.
\nFor excellence in the Local Governance Performance Management System (LGPMS), Roxas conferred awards in administrative governance on Cabanatuan City, San Felipe town in Zambales and Angeles City; for social governance on Cabanatuan City, Tarlac province, Camiling town in Tarlac and Angeles City; and for economic governance on Dipaculao in Aurora, Bulacan province and Palayan City.
\nThe environmental governance citation went to Tarlac province, San Clemente town in Tarlac and Dipaculao in Aurora; and the valuing fundamentals of good governance award to Tarlac province, Angeles City and City of San Fernando.
\nAngeles City and Candaba in Pampanga received special recognition for getting high marks in the LGPMS categories since 2009.
\nRobredo involved civil society groups in validating the LGPMS, an online self-assessment tool that enables provincial, city and town governments to determine their capabilities and limitations in the delivery of basic services, a Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) report said.
\nRoxas also awarded the Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH) to the provincial governments of Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales, and the highly urbanized cities of Angeles and Olongapo.
\nThe SGH is given to local governments that have excelled in planning, budgeting, revenue mobilization, financial management and budget execution, procurement and resource mobilization, said Florida Dijan, DILG regional director.
\nAs of Oct. 25, Dijan said the seven provinces as well as 13 cities and 117 towns in Central Luzon had obtained the SGH.
\nConceptualized and implemented during Robredo\u2019s term, the SGH is also an incentive through which local governments can avail themselves of the Performance Challenge Fund (PCF).
\nThe DILG, on its website, said the PCF was an \u201cincentive fund to eligible local governments in the form of counterpart funding for local development projects in the Annual Investment Program and funded by the 20-percent Local Development Fund.\u201d
\nRoxas said the standards for qualifying for the awards would be \u201cupgraded to raise the [performance] targets of local governments.\u201d
\nRobredo also introduced the full disclosure policy for transparency and accountability in local governance. It is a requirement in the SGH.
\nDILG reports said 856 local governments had qualified for the SGH, getting a total of P1.1 billion for the PCF.
\nThe Seal of Disaster Preparedness, which Robredo also started, showed 8,504 local governments with functional disaster management councils and 1,539 of these with command centers and alarm systems.Tonette Orejas, Inquirer <\/p>\n