(Part 2 of a series on Survey of Mayors’ Delivery of Health and Education Services)

In The Philippine STAR’s August 11 issue, the article entitled “Noy scraps GMA’s P8-billion ‘pork’ for LGUs” stated that President Noy Aquino scrapped two lump sum budgetary items of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The Kilos Asenso for livelihood programs and the Kalayaan Barangay program for insurgency and security measures with a total budget of P8 billion were introduced in 2006. Since these programs were allegedly a source of corruption the new administration would like to cancel this as part of their belt-tightening policy.

Most of the opposition lawmakers, who were very critical of the Arroyo administration feel that this allocation, which is on top of congressmen’s pork barrel funds or the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), was quite redundant. A portion of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) briefer reads, “We will replace them with much better programs like the conditional cash transfers and the LGU performance incentive fund under the DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government).” Read the rest of this entry »

In 1991, the Local Government Code of the Philippines was passed, paving the way for the most sweeping fiscal decentralization reform in the country. Eighteen years later, what have we learned? At best, there has been no serious deterioration in the delivery of local public services; in fact, there were a few well-performing ones among the 45,000 local government units. But, by and large, local governments have become more dependent on the central government for their finances. Read the rest of this entry »

MANILA, Philippines – A lawmaker has filed a measure increasing the salaries of officials and employees of local government units (LGUs). Read the rest of this entry »

SEVENTEEN years after the implementation of the Local Government Code (LGC), Local Government Units (LGUs) continue to struggle with many issues and basic functions mainly due to funding problems, according to a consultant’s report for an Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance to the Philippines. Read the rest of this entry »

BUILDING on the best-practice results of several recent cooperation programs, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the European Union (EU), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and German Association for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) have got together to prepare a primer on how to strengthen cooperation among local government units in delivering essential services, by pooling limited resources, managing common natural resources, and pursuing common projects that will benefit their inhabitants. Read the rest of this entry »