This issue’s story on the compliance of Catanduanes’ 315 barangays with the Full Disclosure Policy (FDP) as mandated under the Local Government Code of 1991 should be a reminder to constituents belonging to the 21 non-compliant and 28 partially compliant barangays to warn their respective officials to do better.
The FDP assessment complements the annual performance evaluation of barangays under the Seal of Good Local Governance for Barangays (SGLGB), which seeks to promote transparency, accountability, and efficiency within local administrations.
A non-compliant and partially compliant finding means the barangay officials are not exactly serious in informing their constituents of what the council is doing with the public funds entrusted to them.
It does not require much effort to post in the barangay hall supposedly public documents such as the
Barangay Financial Report, Barangay Budget, Summary of Income and Expenditures, 20% Component of National Tax Allotment Utilization, Annual Procurement Plan, the quarterly list of Notices of Award, and the Itemized Monthly Collections and Disbursements, much less have them uploaded to the FDP Portal where they can be checked by netizens.
An official of the DILG provincial office told this writer last week that none of the 315 barangays passed the SGLGB performance assessment for 2023, which is based on 2022 performance.
In contrast, 55 barangays regionwide passed the regional assessment, including 20 from Albay, 15 from Camarines Norte, eight from Camarines Sur, six from Masbate and seven from Sorsogon.
According to a report, there were supposed to be eight to 10 villages in the island province which could have made it to the list had there been a little easing of the assessment guidelines as the teams in the other five provinces had done.
Under the SGLGB, the barangays should pass all three (3) core governance areas in Financial Administration and Sustainability, Disaster Preparedness, and Safety, Peace, and Order, and one (1) of the essential governance areas: Social Protection and Sensitivity, Business-Friendliness and Competitiveness, and Environmental Management.
The officials of any barangay which make it to the list of passers, even at the provincial level, should deserve the endorsement of their constituents for another term after December 2025.
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Official and personal events of top elective officials like the governor, congressman or mayor is often a gauge of one’s popularity and the strength of alliances.
Thus, it is interesting to note that, according to some of the attendees, only two local chief executives – Mayor Leo Rodriguez of San Andres and Mayor Cesar Robles of Panganiban—were at the May 10, 2024 birthday party of Cong. Eulogio Rodriguez.
The others, as well as SP members, most likely stayed away to avoid the limelight and unwanted speculations that would surely ensue.
So it would be doubly interesting to see if Virac Mayor Sammy Laynes holds a grand shindig on his birthday this September.
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EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE. There were two evil brothers. They were rich and used their money to keep their ways from the public eye. They even attended the same church and looked to be perfect Christians.
Then, their pastor retired, and a new one was hired. Not only could he see right through the brothers’ deception, but he also spoke well and true and the church started to swell in numbers. A fund-raising campaign was started to build a new assembly.
All of a sudden, one of the brothers died. The remaining brother sought out the new pastor the day before the funeral and handed him a cheque for the amount needed to finish paying for the new building.
“I have only one condition,” he said. “At his funeral, you must say my brother was a saint.” The pastor gave his word and deposited the cheque.
The next day, at the funeral, the pastor did not hold back.
“He was an evil man,” he said. “He cheated on his wife and abused his family.”
After going on in this vein for a small time, he concluded with: “But compared to his brother, he was a saint.”