THE entire members of the Bacolod City Council held a thanksgiving and victory party last Wednesday night at the New Government Center for winning the 2009 Outstanding Sanggunian of the Philippines.
Said award is for highly urbanized cities category for the 2009 given by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Philippine Councilors League (PCL) for Excellence in Legislation award, last March 12, 2010 at Cebu International Convention Center, Mandaue City, Cebu.
Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson said this is a spin of the City Council, as a collegial body, “in this term we have delivered the proof that the Sanggunian has been working for the people of Bacolod.”
“If given a new mandate, we should be able to maintain this, as this is a term award given once every three years,” he said.
Bacolod was the representative of Western Visayas to the national level for the highly urbanized /independent component category that luckily tied with Cebu City for the highest award being given to top performing local legislative body once in every three years.
Western Visayas got three out of four awards that includes highly urbanized city include 3rd to 4th class municipality category, the town of Oton in Iloilo, and 5th and 6th class municipality was awarded to Anilao of Iloilo province.
Sayson said this is a national award which was given by the DILG and the PCL that proves Bacolod has excellent legislation among cities in the entire country.
Councilor Al Victor, chair of the City Council committee on finance, also lauded the said award, claiming that this is through the effort of the City Council through the stewardship of vice mayor Sayson, “in spite of all accusations that the Sanggunian currently is non-performing, in the past, this is the only Sanggunian Panlungsod that has received such award.”
Espino also lauded the staff, regular employees and the members of the City Council for gaining such award for the City of Bacolod.