LGU Role

Every LGU shall exercise the powers expressly granted, those necessarily implied there from, as well as powers necessary, appropriate, or incidental for its efficient and effective governance, and those which are essential to the promotion of the general welfare. Within their respective territorial jurisdiction, LGUs shall ensure and support, among other things, the preservation and enrichment of culture, promote health and safety, enhance the right of the people to a balanced ecology, encourage and support the development of appropriate and self-reliant scientific and technological capabilities, improve public morals, enhance economic prosperity and social justice, promote full employment among their residents, maintain peace and order, and preserve the comfort and convenience of their inhabitants.

The role of the LGU in the Philippine setting is very ideal in approach. Optimistically aside, the idea is much possible given the proper orientation, full people support, active participation of private sectors and the existence of good, moral and responsible local chief executives.

With regard to the role of the State, the national government must support and supervise all LGUs especially those who need much assistance. Some guidelines are as follows:

·        Internal revenue allotment must be based on the performance.

·        Creating a transparency board committee who will monitor and evaluate the transactions of each LGUs to minimize graft and corruption.

·        Empowering the functions of the human resource department through creating programs transforming employees as a public servant.

Autonomous Regions

A.)    The need to have an autonomous region in the case of Mindanao is for them to preserve their culture and tradition. In a way, they are also put into freedom when it comes to their religious practice and beliefs. The need for autonomy in the Cordillera Region was approved for them to have the control of their ancestral land and to better protect the environment and prevent those who would take advantage of their rich natural resources.

But through the years, the autonomy of these two regions was not well practiced. Their leaders, Nur Misuari and Capt. Balweg were among the typical elected officials who continuously change with regards to the uplifting of the lives of the people.

B.)     The granting of Autonomous status of these regions is one way of keeping the peace and order to this country. But the more they were given the autonomy, the more they became active to destabilization of the present administration.

Peace and order must present in a certain community before putting into action any development plan. The government must take serious actions in bringing peace and not enough to make the peace and order possible. The best way to make these things done is to show the people that the government is serious in bringing development to these areas. With the current issues in the National government nowadays, the giving of gift cheques which everyone thinks is a form of bribery to sustain the power of the present administration. It is expected for these regions (which are known to be the home of rebels) to continue the destabilization of the government.

The two regions are very rich in agriculture at the best way to bring economic development to these regions is to tap their agriculture resources and involve the people in the government projects. The giving of stable jobs for these people won’t make them think about doing or joining in any anti-government groups.

It also very important to protect the environment while doing this development action. The government can ask the support of the private sectors and the youth through schools, colleges and universities.

With regards to financial matters, the government can ask for external support to other countries which have programs of development and can fund the said programs.

Local Fiscal Administration Definition

    Local fiscal administration refers to systems, structures, processes, resources, and the policy environment government the inter-governmental and inter-local fiscal relations, affecting, among others the following:

o         the giving of allotments and grants by the national government (NG) to local government units (LGUs);

o         sharing of taxing powers between the NG and the LGUs, and among LGUs units;

o         policy on tax rates and structure;

o         revenue and expenditure planning;

o        revenue and expenditure planning;

o         revenue utilization and expenditure allocation;

o         monitoring and approval of budgets, tax ordinances and other fiscal measures;

o         policy on borrowing and borrowing instruments; and

o         appointment and supervision of local fiscal officers.

The trends in local fiscal administration are inadequacy of own-source revenue to finance basic and devolved functions and thus render LGUs dependent on transfers from the NG.  Reliance on few local taxes, particularly the real property tax and business tax; and uneven level of expenditures hence, unequal access to local public services.

With regards to the inadequacy of lgus, the national government must assist lgus in making development strategies to maximize the resources available.  In that way, lgus can somehow sustain themselves and become less dependent to national government.  It must also help in attracting investors regardless if the leaders are opposition or administration.

Lgus must not sole rely on few local taxes.  It must encourage business to pay honestly the taxes and give credit to those who pay on time.  Those who evade must be persecuted regardless if they are powerful individuals and has connecrtion to top officials.  The national government must help in regulating taxes and help in catching the big fishes.

Local Government Re-Organizations

The organization of local government is expected to bring efficiency  in terms of administrative functions.  The reduction of Hierarchical levels for example will make provinces transformed into coordinating bodies or the barangays into administrative units or the creation of intermediary level between the province and the national government.

With regards to the re organizations, I think the best way to cater the services to the people may not vary to what type of re organization. Our town, the municipality of Porac is in a way will work efficiently with the current situation of organization in the government.  The province of Pampanga is in a way very efficient with the leadership of Among Ed as the governor of the province.  It clearly shows that regardless of what form of government or what re organization will take place, as long as our leaders are honest and sincere with their position, it will surely bring progress to our nation.

b) Change the role of local government after the decentralization became more concrete and delicate.  First of all, they are expected to work  more on deciding what is the best way of delivering the service. Secondly, Local government can make a choice how it can incorporate market mechanisms into its operations to make it globally competitive.  Thirdly, they arte expected to collect more taxes because they are given the power to collect these taxes which they can use in their projects. Lastly, some local government are to poor or too undeveloped and cannot join the rich lgus in making development to respective community.

            With regards to delivering basic services, local government should take seriously the planning of how each and everyone can avail of these services. Its very important for them to realize that there always Filipino out there who are very much in need of these services so given the power to supervise and deliverr these services, lgus must make sure to cater all ages of population. Local government must make continous research and development in making competitive products worth exposing to global market.  In that way, each lgu will competitive and ready to make changes.  Taxes are important for each lgu to make their projects possible.  Each lgu must make effort in collecting taxes.  They should give credit to top tax payers and ask the attention of those who evade.  The national government should give more focus to poor lgus who cant sustain its own.  They must work hand in hand in bringing development and executing plans.

In the field of organizational development to each lgus, the people’s support is always valuable. Since development is for the betterment of peoples lives, they must play the most role in nation building.  The involvement of private sector is also a key to a successful organizational development.  With regards to success of marikina city,  the involvement of the public and private sector played a vital role but behind the success is the man who make all things possible, the local chief executive. 

It is very important for a local government to have a responsible and good leader to make all the plans possible.  A leader whocan stand the pressure in dealing with all the problems and the presence of mind to prioritize things which are more important and urgent to the need of its populace. 

Nature, State and History of Local Government

    The nature of local government is divided into two.  The Upper level  or the government of the whole country  and the government of parts which compose of different levels of local government.  In the case of the Philippines, they are the provinces and the municipalities and cities all under the national government 

    My visions of local government are that as an essential part in nation building and governance, they must have a clear coordination with the national government in terms of delivering basic services to the people.  Their main purpose is to supervise and on time delivery of public service to the people who live in their respective community.  With the given power by the national government to them, they are required to perform the basic function of a local government.  Promotes equality by providing for wide-scale participation and fostering, on the part of the government, “responsiveness and flexibility”.

    The history of Philippine local government began even before the Spaniards occupation in the Philippines.  The existence of barangays as the basic government in every community where power is vested with the datu or the chieftain.  The datu or chieftain performs all the task of a leader.  He makes the laws, fermorms justice to all actions and the evecutive power.  The Spaniards came and they made a Philippines a conial territory of Spain.  The Phillippines is now under the power of the governor general whoacts as the representative of the King here in the Philippines.  History continues until the Americans came and change the barangay into barrio.  When the country ghained the independence from America, it became a republic and all power is centralized to the national government.  Until the approval of the Local government code and the Autonomy act where in they give more power to the Locval governmanet to perform and deliver te services in a responsive and flexible way.   

    With the present local governance and reginaal governance we have, I can say that the country must take serious actions in terms of empowering the local governace.  The LGUs are the core of the national government in terns of delivering the basic services to the people.  Leaders must possess the right values and well trained in terms of local administration.  They must be part of the nation building in terms of innovations and creativity in making their respective LGUs perform not only what is expected of them but exceeding all their basic functions in terms of delivering services to the populace.

Budget Deficit

“The Reduction of budget deficit is a good indication of good fiscal management.”

            Budget deficit is defined as an excess of expenditures over revenues.  In the blog posted under http://services.inquirer.net/search/gws.php?radiobutton=web&searchkey=manila+bulletin&Submit2=GO, the writer is very positive the way things are going in the Philippines.  Im not saying that the writer is a pro GMA but the way things are written, its very obvious that it is a pro government write up.  The facts that were discuss were generally true and we need  those positive things to somehow boost the confidence of the Filipino people.

            Among the things were discuss are Foreign debts, Employment and Corruption.  With regards to Foreign debts, the appreciation of the peso could still not be achieved if there was no efficient fiscal management. These are the facts that I want to share with you regarding the blog. “During Ramos time, there were influx of OFW remittances yet the foreign debts keep going up. The dollar was at one time weak, yet the peso could not beat the dollar. So, what we are seeing now is a result of better handling of foreign debts. Actually, GMA should have been on the worst situation since she inherited big foreign debts from past administration. She had to worked on the double to pay up debts and at the time increase government spending without ruining the budget.”

            With regards to employment, the writer is writing a positive view towards job availability.  “Well, there is plenty of job opportunities today. Every now and then, more and more jobs are being offered during job fairs. Every day more jobs are being created. There is only a scarcity of qualified applicants. Hanjen alone need 4000 welders, and a thousand other job categories. Yet only few can be hired. What about the thousands of bpo demand for qualified workers? If there are many who remain jobless or poor, I believe these people should try their best to help themselves because there are opportunities waiting for them, either as workers or as small entrepreneurs.”

            The corruption in the Philippine government is really part of our daily lives as Filipino. The writer on the other hand has another point in discussing this. “Until today, I still have to hear another Clarissa Ocampo testifying against GMA. Nobody has come forward and give facts on amount of money plundered, identify bank account where the stolen money is deposited and present paper trail leading to GMA as the culprit. It’s easy to accuse GMA of corruption but proving it is another thing.”  This was written before the Jun Lozada ZTE scandal. I don’t know how will the writer react if ever she has another blog regarding the issues.