In early afternoon last Tuesday, City Mayor Noel Rosal, along with Vice Mayor, Vitorrio Roces and all members of the city legislative council, received the Galing Pook national championship award for this year given by the Galing Pook Foundation.
The awarding ceremony, graced by Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Mar Roxas and Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa — representing President Benigno Aquino III — was held at the Edsa Shangrila Hotel in Mandaluyong City.
This Awards Program is a joint initiative of the Local Government Academy–DILG, the Ford Foundation and other individual advocates of good governance from the academe, civil society and the government.
In late afternoon of the same day, the group was at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City for the selection of winners in this year’s Public Governance System (PGS) awards of the Institute of Solidarity in Asia (ISA) where this city won the most-coveted Silver Governance Trailblazer (SGT) award for excellence in local governance.
The city government garnered a score higher than 8.5 in the public revalida or performance report in accomplishing the Compliance Stage in ISA’s program for institutionalizing its PGS– thus, the SGT award that made it the only winner among the country’s local government units (LGUs) this year.
Such accomplishments, which over years generally lifted up the city’s inclusive growth and development through effective local governance, overwhelmed the ISA panel during its presentation made by Rosal in the revalida.
His presentation was focused on the city’s achievements in local tourism developments that last year gained a 32.6-percent growth in tourist arrivals compared to the previous year as well as on its campaign to capture a slot in the country’s five top convention centers.
Other winners out of the 10 agencies and LGUs which pre-qualified to the awards were the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).
ISA is a non-government organization that developed and promotes the PGS as a management tool for local governments across the Philippines by way of requiring LGUs and national agencies, including government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) to implement a series of reforms that fundamentally transform its policy-making process and bureaucratic structure.
“When we introduced the system in the city government under the principle that good governance is a shared responsibility, we worked with a broad-based community group to design specific public policy goals, an action plan to accomplish them and performance metrics by which to measure progress,” Rosal told the Philippine News Agency here on Wednesday.
By institutionalizing the input of community groups and business associations in the policy-making of the city governments, he said, the PGS process encouraged democratic participation which, in turn, strengthened the incentives of public officials to improve transparency, foster economic growth, and improve the quality and reliability of public services.
The city’s PGS program consists of four stages — initiation, compliance, proficiency and institutionalization — which translated its vision into specific and quantifiable strategies and time-bound commitments with the objective of realizing breakthrough results, he said.
In the search for the 2014 Galing Pook awards, the city government was among the 10 winners recognized for excellence in local governance with its public-private partnership (PPP) undertakings that have been proven effective in the implementation of high-end development projects in the locality.
The PPP program won for the city the Galing Pook Award under the Ten Outstanding Local Governance Programs as it was able to show positive results and impact, promotion of people’s participation and empowerment, innovation, transferability and sustainability, and efficiency of service delivery.
The Rosal administration’s flagship project implemented through PPP the Legazpi is the Central Grand Terminal, a P300-million deal which was completed without the local government spending even a single centavo being done under the build-operate and transfer (BOT) scheme.
Located in a 3.9-hectare prime site owned by the city government, the facility developed by LKY Development Corp. and whose construction was completed in 2009 now serves as an integrated bus and other public utility vehicles terminal serving as the major transit point of the city.
The terminal has grown into one of the country’s best terminal, being a big boost to the local tourism industry and, together with the newly renovated Ibalong Centrum for Recreation (ICR), the site has also been developed into a central core for leisure and recreation.
The PPP program won for the city the Galing Pook Award under the Ten Outstanding Local Governance Programs as it was able to show positive results and impact, promotion of people’s participation and empowerment, innovation, transferability and sustainability, and efficiency of service delivery.
“This Galing Pook Award would further give rise to a relatively young and dynamically growing demographic of the city and demonstrates the determined and persevering character of Legazpeños as they live under the shadow of Mayon Volcano,” Rosal said in acknowledging the award. (PNA)
Source: philippinestoday.net
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