Consistency helped more LGUs get good governance seal 鈥� researcher
Updated @ 9:30 p.m., Dec. 12, 2024
MANILA, Philippines — Consistency helped more of the country’s local government units (LGU) attain the prestigious Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) this 2024, according to Ateneo de Manila University lecturer and policy researcher Czarina Medina-Guce in an interview with 黑料社 on Wednesday, Dec. 11.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) awarded 714 LGUs with its prestigious seal, its incentives program recognizing performance in transparency and accountability, in ceremonies on Monday and on Tuesday, Dec. 9 and 10.
READ: More LGUs bag this year’s DILG Seal of Good Local Governance award
Based on DILG records, the figure marked the most honorees since 2015 when the program was first implemented.
Article continues after this advertisementIt was also the highest number of recipients since its 2022 edition, which was the first since the SGLG was institutionalized by Republic Act 11292 and the first since the COVID-19 pandemic deferred the awards in 2020 and 2021.
Article continues after this advertisementMedina-Guce attributed the peak in awardees to the consistency of the 10 criteria areas prescribed by RA 11292, in contrast to the fluctuating number of criteria before the law.
With research experience spanning nearly 20 years, Medina-Guce studied the history and design of the SGLG program in her June 2024 co-authored paper published in the Philippine Journal of Development.
The criteria grew to four core and one essential in 2017, then seven “all in” in 2018 and 2019. RA 11292 then expanded the criteria to 10 “all in” governance areas, implemented since the 2022 assessment post-pandemic.
While the assessment criteria were prescribed by law, indicators under each criterion are reviewed and expanded under the inter-agency Council for Good Local Governance, headed by the DILG.
“When you introduce a new indicator, it takes the LGUs generally two years to adapt,” she said.
“Back then, LGUs would find out about the new indicators when the memo came out during the first quarter of the year. Then, they would comply, and at the end of the year, they would be assessed. Usually, they would not pass if the indicator was new and difficult,” she added.
Passed in 2019, the SGLG law prescribed 10 assessment criteria areas:
- good fiscal or financial administration or financial sustainability
- disaster preparedness
- social protection and sensitivity program
- health compliance and responsiveness
- programs for sustainable education
- business friendliness and competitiveness
- safety, peace and 0rder
- environmental management
- tourism
- heritage development, culture and arts
- youth development.
“The DILG must be very happy because the rate of increase to 700 is incredible. It shows the learning implications [of SGLG for LGUs]. So our hope is that 2025 will show a similar trend… Hopefully, the number of winning LGUs ¸will be higher,” Medina-Guce said.
RELATED: 493 local governments get incentive fund for good performance
According to the DILG, the 2024 SGLG Incentive Fund has a total of P980,281,000.
Provincial LGU awardees will be granted P3 million each, city LGU awardees P2 million each, and municipality LGU awardees P1,153,000 each.
Remulla eyes revamp for awards
During the first cluster of the 2024 awarding of the Seal of Good Local Governance on Monday, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla proposed a revamp of his department’s incentives program for LGUs.
Remulla suggested cutting the number of assessment criteria from 10 down to just three: fiscal management, innovation, and disaster resiliency.
Medina-Guce explained that the proposed changes might require amending RA 11292, which identifies the current 10 governance criteria.
“Any amendment to streamline [SGLG’s criteria] should make sure that the design sufficiently represents what we envision local government performance ought to be,” she said.
Remulla also proposed creating a separate board of judges to assess LGUs for the award.
While Remulla has yet to detail his plan for a separate panel, Medina-Guce pointed out that the proposed board’s functions would have to complement the current functions of the regional and national validating bodies.
The DILG chief also floated the idea of holding the awards every three years instead of every year.
“It’s better that in the totality of your administration, you are judged for the three years that you worked in the entirety of those three topics,” Remulla said.
Medina-Guce agreed with giving out the award at longer intervals, citing practicality.
“On a technical standpoint, if the outcome that we want to happen is better adaptive response [of the LGUs] on the performance standards, then a two- or three-year parameter makes sense given the LGUs’ learning trends when new indicators or increased standards are introduced,” she said.
The caveat, however, is that adjusting the award’s intervals may disrupt the momentum of LGUs on SGLG’s current yearly cycle.
“Over SGLG’s last decade, LGUs have come to recognize it as the ‘mother’ of all awards. They pour political capacity and rigor into the assessment process to meet the performance standards. If the assessment interval will be stretched, hopefully, it would not water down that energy among the LGUs,” she said.
