A Different Kind of Card

Deanie Lyn Ocampo

 

Before summer ends this year, students would not be the only ones who would have received their grades and report cards. Local government officials would, too.

In 24 municipalities in Visayas and Mindanao from March to April, civil society organization (CSO) leaders conducted the second run of the Civil Society Satisfaction Report Card (CSRC). They interviewed community leaders to find out the extent of their satisfaction with regards social service delivery and local governance in the last one and a half years. The results will then be presented to their local government unit (LGU) officials in a forum, where they will jointly agree on action points for improvement.

 

 

 

The first run in these 24 municipalities was conducted in May-July 2013, just before the installation of the incumbent Mayors, to assess LGU performance during the past administration. These municipalities were in Antique, Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, Davao Oriental, Agusan Del Sur, and Surigao Del Sur. It was participated in by 872 CSO leaders representing 837 CSOs in the communities.

 

Satisfied or Not Satisfied?

Here are the 10 major findings from the first run:

1.People’s equitable access to livelihood, employment, and business opportunities, and support to agriculture are the most common resources CSO leaders said LGUs must address.

 2.Health, food and nutrition, and potable water and sanitation are the common basic social services they deemed important for LGUs to

 3.Issues on ancestral domain, agrarian and aquatic reform, illegal fishing, and sustainable and safe environment are CSOs’ concerns in specific municipalities. Because they raised these top-of-mind, it indicates the longstanding nature of these problems, the big impact on their communities, and their urgent and possibly erstwhile call to solve these – graft and corruption in Antique; illegal fishing in Samar and Leyte; and ancestral domain in Agusan del Sur.

 4.Generally, majority of the CSOs were satisfied with LGUs’ delivery of services for their minimum basic needs – food, health, education, water, and shelter. In these, Davao region LGUs seem to fare better than the others. At a closer look, access to food and nutrition seems to be wanting in Eastern Visayas; access to housing and shelter in Western Visayas would have to be improved. Caraga region LGUs have to work better on other social services aside from food and nutrition.

 5.CSOs were uncertain (whether they feel satisfied or not) about their access to resources – land asset; ancestral domain; agrarian, aquatic and urban land reform; sustainable industrialization; gainful employment and just compensation.

 6.They were also uncertain about how LGUs address or promote sustainable and safe environment, pointing out that garbage collection; environment protection, conservation, and illegal logging; illegal activities like gambling and illegal drugs; and peaceful resolution of armed conflict were inadequately or hardly addressed at all.

 7.CSOs in specific municipalities (in #2) were definitely not satisfied with environment protection, campaign against illegal fishing and illegal activities, and graft and corruption.

8.In Agriculture, CSOs across all regions were uncertain about how its LGUs have satisfactorily provided or facilitated market development and postharvest development services.

9.CSOs were satisfied with various Health-related services; almost all of them were, in fact, were highly satisfied with child health services. In specific municipalities, however, CSOs remained unsure about the satisfactory delivery of safe water and sanitary toilets in their communities.

10.Generally, Eastern and Western Visayas CSOs seemed to be uncertain about more services and issues than those from Mindanao.

 

Dialogue with Local Government

The municipal CSRC results were presented to the Mayors and other LGU officials from the executive and legislative offices last October 2013. They acknowledged or recognized the CSRC, its results and recommendations (suffice to say that there were also doubts on the accuracy and representativeness of CSRC results, and reservations on the weightiness of perception-based survey). Low CSRC ratings were accepted as challenge by LGU officials of some Eastern Visayas municipalities to perform better. Expectedly, more progressive-minded leaders are open to public evaluation, while traditional politicians tend to be sensitive.

 

 

Here are the concrete CSO-LGU agreed points documented from 15 municipalities:

1.To establish CSO Desks in the LGU

2.To designate an LGU focal person for CSO-related concerns, ex. CSO accreditation, access to information regarding GPB (Grassroots Participatory Budgeting)- and LGU-funded projects, membership in local special bodies

3.To institutionalize the Municipal Housing Board with two CSO representative-seats

4.To conduct orientation for the CSOs on the Annual Investment Plan, Full Disclosure Policy, and Public Financial Management Audit

5.To present the local budgeting calendar to the CSOs

6.To pass Sangguniang Bayan Resolution adopting the CSRC as a mechanism for CSO participation (with SB approval already)

 

 

Some of these agreed points have been realized, and CSO leaders continue monitoring the rest. They look forward to conducting the second run, also as a way to check if their LGUs have performed better.

 

 

 

 

The CSRC was developed by CODE-NGO in 2012 and is currently being implemented by local CSOs in 44 municipalities. Citizen monitoring efforts such as this are not new in our country, though they are sparse and intermittent. The 1987 Philippine Constitution and the 1991 Local Government Code provide the policy framework for CSOs to engage with government, believing that citizens will be empowered, governance will improve, and development will be more effective.

 

(This article is based on CODE-NGO’s “Citizens’ Participation in Monitoring LGU Performance and Development Planning for Poverty Reduction” project with funding support from the Delegation of the European Union to the Philippines.)

 

Deanie is the Capacity Building Officer for the said project. She is also a vegetarian and Raj Yoga student. She will start an herb garden in the next weeks, and expand her autoethnography pretty soon.