Naga wins DILG award for good governance

CEBU, Philippines - The City of Naga was recently awarded the Seal of Good Housekeeping by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for good governance.The bronze plaque, which was given to the city last May 25 at the Cebu International Convention Center, was for its good governance performance in internal housekeeping particularly in the areas of Good Planning, Sound Fiscal Management, Transparency and Accountability and Valuing Performance Management.

According to the DILG’s website, the Seal of Good Housekeeping Award is in view of the department’s commitment “to aggressively scale up interventions to elevate the practice of governance that values transparency, accountability, participation and performance into an institutionalized status.”

The award reportedly comes with a P1.3 million grant, which Mayor Valdemar Chiong said the city has yet to receive.

Among the criteria for this award are results of Commission on Audit, which must be in an “acceptable level,” growth in local revenues over three years, transparency of the procurement process, compliance to the Anti-Red Tape Law, among others.

Last month, the city was named as Best Tax Collector in Central Visayas by the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) named the new City of Naga, Cebu as the most efficient collector of real property tax in Central Visayas.

It bested 15 other cities in the region with a collection efficiency of 522.47 percent.

Naga City has a total land area of 101.97 square kilometers and an annual collection of P269,324,827.60.

Bais in Negros Oriental, with P99.4 million and an efficiency rate of 355.04 percent, Carcar City with P11.46 million and an efficiency rate of 145.14 percent, Toledo City with P150 million and an efficiency rate of 130.88 percent, and Lapu-Lapu City with P177.5 million and an efficiency rate of 111.2 percent.   - THE FREEMAN