TACLOBAN CITY—While rehabilitation from the massive destruction caused by Supertyphoon Yolanda four years ago continues, Tacloban City received the 2017 Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) award from the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Aside from Tacloban, two other cities in Eastern Visayas—Baybay and Maasin—also received the SGLG award. The award was announced on November 8 while the city was observing the fourth anniversary of Yolanda.
Tacloban City Mayor Cristina G. Romualdez said the SGLG symbolizes the city’s commitment toward good local governance, transparency and accountability in the use of public funds.
The SGLG is an incentives program of the DILG which recognizes outstanding accomplishments of local government units (LGUs) in financial administration, disaster preparedness, social protection, business friendliness and competitiveness, and environmental management. This is the city’s first SGLG while undergoing massive rehabilitation following the devastation of Yolanda in November 2013.
Started by the late DILG Secretary Jessie Robredo, the SGLG is the scaled-up version of the Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH), of which the LGU was a Silver Awardee in 2012.
Romualdez said the award is an indication of how Tacloban has been able to recover after the devastation of Yolanda. She added this would help boost the confidence of investors and the business sector in doing business in the city.
She said initiatives of the city government, which bring much-needed services to the communities like the Caring Giving and Reaching Out Barangayan Program, helped boost city’s chance to get the award. During the Barangayan, city residents avail themselves of free medical services, live-birth processing, legal assistance and other frontline services of the government.
With the help of the Department of Trade and Industry, the city government has provided livelihood assistance to 13,262 beneficiaries in the form of business trainings and provision of starter kits.
The city government also recently put up a satellite office in Tacloban North, 8 kilometers away from the City Center to bring government services closer to the resettlement sites.
It is also working on ways to provide a permanent water supply and electric connection and other basic amenities to the northern part of Tacloban, touted as a new township.
Gearing to be a “Smart City,” it launched recently an online Payment and Assessment System for taxpayers, and is set to install smart cameras and traffic systems in major streets.
City DILG Director Darwin Bibar lauded Romualdez for implementing good-governance initiatives and coming up with responsive programs for city residents, which merited the DILG Seal for the City.
“It’s an indication that good governance is taking place in the city,” he said.
Bibar added the local government will be conferred the award on November 27 in the awards ceremony that will be held in Manila.
The award makes Tacloban eligible to avail itself of additional funds for its priority development projects from the government’s Performance Challenge Fund.
Recently, the city was named most improved Highly Urbanized City by the National Competitive Council and a finalist in the Most Business Friendly City by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.