To empower civil society organizations’ (CSO) participation in preventing corruption and promoting transparent governance, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), through its National Barangay Operations Office, held its pilot roll-out training and orientation on barangay advocacy from Dec. 11-12. The first day of the two-day roll-out training was participated by around 47 barangays (20 of them were from Mandaue City, seven barangays from Lapu-Lapu City, 15 barangays from Cebu City, and five barangays from the Cebu Province). Lawyer Maria Noelle Maico, legal officer of DILG Region 7, said this training is intended for the CSOs to become aware of their roles in transparent governance on the barangay level. “Since it’s the first roll-out, the participants are the CSOs. We will mobilize citizen participation since it’s the CSOs that are familiar with their barangays and they can monitor movements at their level,” says Maico. “Citizen participation should be mobilized, primarily the barangay-based CSOs that are already known and familiar to the works of their barangays,” she said. CSOs are composed of barangay-based volunteers who share the same advocacy. Some of the CSOs that were present were the environmental group Soil and Water Conservation Foundation Inc., a representative from the Pantawid Pamilya Filipino Program, representatives of indigenous communities, and representatives of the Children’s Right Protection Unit. (Wenilyn Sabalo, USJ-R intern)