RETHINKING THE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCILS

RETHINKING THE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCILS According to the law, there are supposed to be Local Development Councils (LDCs) at the barangay, municipal, city, provincial and regional levels. According to that same law, these councils are supposed to publish their meeting agendas and their meeting minutes, for everyone to access and read. If I am not mistaken, access to these documents are covered by the Executive Order (EO) about Freedom of Information (FOI). As far as I know however, there are many LDCs that are not meeting at all, and some of them are even fabricating their meeting agendas and meeting minutes to make it appear that they conducted their meetings, even if they did not. It is ironic, but they are actually breaking the law, in order to comply with the law. Also as far as I know, the Barangay Development Councils (BDCs) are supposed to submit their reports to the Municipal Development Councils (MDCs), and in turn, the MDCs are supposed to submit their reports to the Provincial Development Councils (PDCs). Following the same rules, the PDCs are supposed to submit their reports to the Regional Development Councils (RDCs). In actual practice however, there could be some problems here and there, especially when some mayors would insist that their cities are technically not "under" the provinces. Add to that the fact that the regions not only lack the political power to enforce the rules, but they also lack the financial muscle to assert their roles. It might sound like an unwelcome idea, but I think that the NEDA should become stricter in requiring the RDCs to submit to them the consolidated reports of all the LDCs under them, from all levels. As a matter of fact, the DBM should require all the LDCs to submit copies of their reports to them, as a condition for the release of their Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs). Needless to say, these reports should include their progress in meeting their own local Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as recommended by the UN. IKE SENERES/07-23-2024