Remarks of ISA Chairman Francisco Del Rosario Jr. at the 21 July 2017 ‘Governance that Delivers’ event.
Our esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen,
The political landscape of the Philippines continues to change as more and more public sector institutions realize the importance of governance reform. In the past decade that ISA has been working with LGUs, we have seen provinces, cities, and municipalities become models of world-class public service.
What do these LGUs have in common? A vision. How did they achieve it? Through good governance and the Performance Governance System (PGS).
Good governance is the key to transformation. LGUs have many needs, but it is governance that ties all of these together. Good
governance isn’t just about ‘not being bad,’ it’s also about being competent at what we do. In competence, there are two aspects—operations (our day-to-day tasks) and strategy. Operations is important, but it only makes us efficient at status quo. We need strategy to be transformative.
This is where the PGS comes in. It’s a tool that enables us to do strategy. What you’ll be hearing from our partners today is the PGS as a governance program that has allowed LGUs to harness the transformative power of strategic thinking. Through the PGS, these LGUs have grown their local economies and transformed their organizations, which eventually led to stronger stakeholder support and the sustainability of leadership and plans.
If you want to create impact and provide greater opportunities for your province, your city, or your municipality, then you can’t just stick to status quo. You have to change the way you do things. We all want progress, but it entails certain sacrifices and changes. There’s no shortcut or magic pill that can be prescribed to achieve progress, but there’s the PGS—a tried and tested tool for transformation and a governance program that delivers.
With that, I hope that as you listen to our partners’ stories, you will be inspired to do the same for your LGUs. Thank you very much.