Friday, February 22, 2008 Mayor denies working to host Galing Pook rites
A SEEMING tug-of-war over the credit for the recent Galing Pook Award won’t stop Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña from asking President Arroyo to award all 700 members of the City’s Lupong Tagapamayapa during her next trip to Cebu.
Osmeña corrected reports that he invited organizers of the Galing Pook Awards to hold the awarding ceremony in Cebu City.
Galing Pook Foundation, the award-giving body, invited the mayor and City Councilor Edgardo Labella to receive the award in Manila on Feb. 28.
Dr. Encarnacion Daño, president and program manager of the Liga ng mga Lupong Tagapamayapa-Cebu City chapter, earlier told Sun.Star Cebu that the mayor assured them that he will bring the awarding here.
“I asked for the President to give the awards to the 700 lupons who are all part of the effort. I did not say the awarding should be done here. It’s Dr. Daño who’s saying all these things and grandstanding. Nagsamok gyud siya, she’s just trying to get all the credit for herself,” Osmeña told reporters yesterday.
Credit
For the mayor, the credit for the recent Galing Pook Award for the City’s “Strengthening Justice System in the Grassroots” program goes to Labella, who supervised the training of the City’s 700 lupon members.
In a phone interview yesterday, Daño said she is not grandstanding when she explained to reporters how the barangay justice system won the Galing Pook Award.
“I don’t think that’s grandstanding, I was just talking about the program that already had many achievements even before. Councilor Labella helped us with only one activity, which was the training that he funded,” she told Sun.Star Cebu.
The City was recognized by the Galing Pook Foundation for strengthening the justice system at the grassroots for a series of seminars on the barangay justice system in 2005 and 2006.
Lupon members help contending parties try to reach a solution, in an attempt to keep disputes from reaching the courts.
But Labella learned that most of them were still ignorant of the implementing rules and regulations of the Local Government Code on dispute settlement.
Savings
This prompted him and other members of the committee on laws, ordinances, public accountability and good government to come up with the seminars together with the Liga.
According to the DILG, for every case resolved by the lupon, the government saves P10,000.
Data from the DILG 7 showed that from 2004 to 2006, the City’s lupon handled 37,063 cases, 26,694 of which were settled at the barangay level, helping the government save over P266 million. (LCR)
