Friday, February 29, 2008 Herbolario: Service standards for local governance By Alfredo Jose Herbolario The Academe
THE municipality of Tuba in Benguet serves as a model town for arriving at Service Standards that may become a springboard for benchmarking by other municipalities in the Cordilleras.
A series of training programs, seminar-workshops and consultancy services including researches were undertaken for the local government unit (LGU) of Tuba in joint venture between the University of the Cordilleras (UC) and Local Government Development Foundation (Logodef).
The memorandum of agreement (MOA) entered into among Tuba, Logodef and UC reinforced the commitment towards effective quality service in local governance and gave visible impetus to projects such as GIS (Geographic Information Service), cut-flower farming, solid waste management and trading post, among others.
There were also researches in the form of feasibility studies conducted by UC graduate school students of MBA like water system in Tuba: its sourcing and distribution; Material Recovery Facility (MRF), and the Cordillera Norms and Values influencing local governance. Other studies are in the pipeline.
Moreover, seminar-workshops were programmed for officers and heads of the government of Tuba, which include problem identification and legislation, and methods of measuring service indicators.
Lately, the service indicators and standards were finalized involving the identified different functional units of Tuba, namely: agriculture, assessment budget, family welfare and responsible parenthood, health and sanitation, infrastructure, education and sports, legislation, planning, solid waste management and water system.
A manual to this effect shall be compiled and published as reference. The efforts are attributed to a technical working group that was created and composed of Tuba representatives-Dominga Walang, Margarita Bisaya and Jackson Pasamic and UC consultants, namely: Edna Tabanda, Alfred Jose Herbolario and Marisa Cabatu.
Needless to say, Logodef provided logistical support and the technical expertise through Dr. Gaudencio Sosmeña, the former executive director, now taken over by Edmund Tayao, and Dr. Mariano Guillermo.
The criteria in determining the service indicators and standards for local governance are summarized with the acronym-AREATTE: Adequacy, Responsiveness, Equality, Adaptability, Timeliness, Efficiency and Effectiveness in rendering service to constituents,
Not to forget though is the then Mayor Jose Baluda and the Municipal Council officials who were very supportive to the endeavor in enhancing local governance through optimum use of scarce resources.
However, the newly-elected mayor, Flor Bentrez and the new set of Municipal Council officials and members continue to manifest active support and dynamic involvement in the various activities to finalize the proposed manual on local service indicators and standards.
This, hopefully, will serve as guidelines in monitoring and evaluating the LGU performance to fulfill the maxim: "The greatest good for the greatest number."
