Performance challenged

A FEW days before Halloween, 306 local government units throughout the country were conferred the “much coveted” Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) by the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Among the top awardees – if not the topmost – was Pampanga with the provincial government, its two component cities of San Fernando and Mabalacat, the City of Angeles, and 10 of its 19 municipalities as recipients.

At the awarding ceremonies, Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael D. Sueno hailed this year’s celebration as a “huge milestone,” coming as it is on the 25^th anniversary of the Local Government Code which has been praise released as having “ushered in a new era of empowering LGUs to become partners in national development and conduits for grassroots-level democracy and community participation, vigilance and volunteerism in pursuit of local development.”

Said Sueno: “We find a deeper meaning in this year’s celebration because while we have achieved a lot in terms of empowering and making local government units more self-reliant, we need to set our sights on further strengthening local autonomy under a federal system of government.”

Hence, this year’s celebratory theme “LGC@25: Pagsulong, Progreso, Pagbabago,” that, Sueno explained, “is a call to all LGUs to continue their pursuit of performance excellence in local governance and development.”

And, as though to drive Sueno’s point even deeper, the SGLG award coming with Performance Challenge Fund, a financial incentive which can be utilized for the implementation of local development projects.

That only 306 of the country’s 1,672 LGUs earned the 2016 SGLG bespoke of the highest – not to mention, stringent – standards that guided the selection process.

Explained DILG-3 Director Florida Dijan: “To be conferred with the SGLG, an LGU must pass three core criteria: financial administration, disaster preparedness, and social protection as well as any of the following essential criteria: business friendliness and competitiveness, peace and order, and environmental protection.”

A cursory look at the roster of the Pampanga awardees, exempting the provincial government – the LGUs of the cities of Angeles, San Fernando and Mabalacat, and the towns of Apalit, Floridablanca, Guagua, Lubao, Magalang, Mexico, Minalin, San Luis, San Simon, and Sta. Rita – made not a few keen political observers and analytical coffeeshop habitues doubt: 1) the worthiness of the choices -- not all, but a number of them nonetheless; and 2) the soundness of the application of the criteria.

Well-timed, they said of the 2016 SGLG awarding rites pre-undas, suggesting ghosts and ghouls got into the act: Minulto na, namaligno pa.

So was the ratio between IRA (internal revenue allotment) dependency and locally sourced revenues factored in the aspect of financial administration? Ditto the approved budget against actual expenditure of the LGUs, the preponderance of supplementary budgeting, collection target accomplishments? Were COA reports on the LGUs considered?

Disaster preparedness covers not only incidents of calamities such as typhoons, floods and fires. Traffic is a current disaster in all the cities of Pampanga showing the LGUs’ utter unpreparedness to cope, much less to even just think of any solution.

Social protection? The tragedy of children begging, with or without their parents, of physically-challenged mendicants, of the mentally-lost, all roaming the streets makes a big joke of the SGLG bestowed upon the urban LGUs.

Business friendliness, indeed! What with investments taking precedence over the environment and the well-being of the populace. An already approved – reportedly – steel mill at the foot of Mount Arayat is but the latest expression of that business friendliness of an LGU.

Peace and order, wow! So how many shabu laboratories and warehouses have been discovered within the territorial jurisdiction of those SGLG-conferred LGUs?   

How many killings, both drug-related and not, are in their records?

And, in the case of Mabalacat City a pointed question: What are the ramifications of its LGU getting an SGLG vis-à-vis President Duterte’s allegations of narco-politics smacked at Mayor Marino Morales?

Environmental protection? So how and where do these awarded LGUs dispose of their garbage?  Any one of these in the list of the LGUs with open dumpsites that were taken to court by the Environmental Management Bureau? What is the state of their waterways? The cleanliness and greenness of their communities? The air pollution index of their skies?     

It really makes us wonder how the awardees – not all, but a number of them – low in general public esteem were able to pass the highest standards set for the SGLG. Performance-challenged, how can these LGUs be in any way worthy of that Performance Challenge Fund incentive?  

Here is one noble initiative at meritocracy foolishly devolved to mediocrity.    

Ay, here’s change scammed.