P1 Million await Best Sanggunians in the Country

By MYLES JOSEPH E. COLASITO
February 12, 2013

TACLOBAN CITY – The best performing municipal and city sanggunians in the Philippines stand to receive P1 Million pesos in projects each during the national Local Legislative Awards (LLA) ceremonies on March 7, 2013, revealed Atty. Alan Zulueta, national chairman of the Philippine Councilors League (PCL) during the Eastern Visayas regional LLA rites last February 13, 2013 in Tacloban City.

The winners by category are: 1st to 3rd Class Municipality - Catarman, Northern Samar; 4th to 6th Class Municipality - Limasawa, Southern Leyte; HUC & Independent Component City - Ormoc City; Component City - Calbayog City.

DILG Regional Director Pedro A. Noval Jr. meanwhile, exhorted the awardees and all sanggunians in Eastern Visayas to continue to innovate in order to address problems like poverty, crime and environmental degradation.

“Being awardees you must strive to enhance the quality of your performance beyond administrative compliance, to uphold legislation that responds to the people’s needs and captures a viable vision of the LGU”, said Dir. Noval.

Here is the complete list of regional awardees. For 1st to 3rd class municipality – Catarman, Northern Samar (champion); Hinunangan, Southern Leyte (1st runner-up); Naval, Biliran (2nd runner-up); Sta. Rita, Samar (3rd runner-up); Tanauan, Leyte (4th runner-up).

For 4th to 6th class municipality – Limasawa, Southern Leyte (champion); Balangiga, Eastern Samar (1st runner-up); Babatngon, Leyte (2nd runner-up); Cabucgayan, Biliran (3rd runner-up); San Isidro, Northern Samar (4th runner-up); Motiong, Samar (5th runner-up).

For HUC/ICC and Component City the champion was Ormoc City and Calbayog City respectively.

The award seeks to highlight innovations and excellence in local legislation to inspire other sanggunians to perform better. Plaques were given to all regional awardees while regional champions received an additional P10,000 pesos cash from the PCL. It was learned further that only regional awardees which garnered an overall point score of at least 85% are eligible to become national nominees.

Aside from the PCL which is the vice chair of the LLA Regional Awards Committee; the program owes its success to its partners, Department of Agriculture, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and the Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry which send representatives to the regional evaluation to validate the provincial nominees.

The award has five criteria: Effectiveness of the Legislative Agenda (35 pts.); Effectiveness of the Legislative Tracking System (10 pts.); Availability of Legislative Documents (10 pts.); Efficiency of Performance of the Sanggunian (35 pts.); and Quality of Office set-up and staff complement (10 pts.)

The LLA was temporarily suspended in 2007 at the national level but has since been implemented continuously since 2008. The National LLA is now conferred every term of office of local officials. To allow for evaluations and validation to be conducted from the provincial, regional and national levels, the coverage period is from July 1, 2010 up to June 30, 2012.

Meanwhile, based on the Memorandum of Agreement signed between PCL-EV and DILG-8 during the same ceremonies last February 13, the regional LLA search will be held yearly in order to further institutionalize the system of recognizing the best performing sanggunians in Eastern Visayas.