A memorandum of understanding that sealed the adoption by Bacolod City of the best practices of local governance from Cambodia, under the “Partnership for Democratic Local Governance is Southeast Asia” project, was entered into between the Bacolod City government and the Local Government Development Foundation yesterday.
The MOU was signed by Mayor Evelio Leonardia representing Bacolod City, and Edmund Tayao representing LOGODEF at the Bacolod City Government Center, and was witnessed by government and barangay officials, and private sector representatives.
Bacolod was chosen as pilot city out of the 121 others in the country for the project that is co-funded by the European Commission.
The project covers five countries in Southeast Asia – the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung has a lead role in the management of the project which will be implemented in close cooperation with regional organizations and local government associations in the countries involved.
Tayao, LOGODEF executive director, said the project will run for 2 1/2 years starting March 2010 so they chose local government units which are already somehow developed, and have shown a capacity to undertake real development initiatives.
One of the criteria is the dependence of the LGU on the Internal Revenue Allotment, he said. Bacolod is about 40 percent dependent on the IRA while the other LGU’s are 65-75 percent dependent on it, he added.
BEST PRACTICES TRANSLATED
Tayao said they are now translating the best practices of Bacolod to a manual that will be used by the replication teams later. This will eventually become the basis of replication strategies and activities, he said.
In November, trainors and coaches will meet and train for 10 days in Thailand to replicate the best practices in the Philippines and in other countries, Tayao said. They will then start capacity building of LGU’s in their individual countries by January, he said.
Tayao lauded the city officials for having chosen public-private partnership. He also said the Philippines is far more developed than Cambodia.
STRONG PRIVATE SECTOR
The private sector in Cambodia is very strong since the country is rebuilding from years of war or infighting, Tayao said.
In other words, the government can not rely on itself alone. The private sector has shown not only the capacity but the willingness to work with the government of Cambodia, he said.
Leonardia said that all sectors have one goal – to make Bacolod a better place to live in. Since they have the same goal, they might as well work together, he said, because he believes running the city is a shared responsibility.
If Bacolod has grown fast so far, it can grow faster with the full involvement of the private sector, Leonardia said.
Meanwhile, Tayao said that because of the hostage crisis in Manila that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead, all eyes are on the LGU’s.
“We usually want to identify who is to blame, but we should think of what reforms we should implement so this would not happen again,” he said.
What happened in Manila showed the inadequacy of the structures of government, he added.
GOOD MODEL
Tayao said they believe that local governance is a good model for good governance because so many issues today have shown that local governments really play a very significant role from disasters, to development to education.
But it is possible only when there is close cooperation between the private and the public sectors, he said.
“So this is a good reason why we should come together and discuss the possibilities of closely working together to form our common objective of development of our local government,” Tayao said.
So much of the bulk of local governance is with the LGU, he said.
Tayao said that, with the presidency of Benigno “Nonoy” Aquino III, they hope they could discuss real reforms.*CGS
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