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.