Gov. Victor F. Ortega accepts the Gawad Galing Pook Award for the La Union Medical Center, which received recognition for its pioneering effort at making health service accessible to all constituents, but discouraging the dole-out mentality by enabling indigent patients to pay in kind. The provincial government turned the LUMC into an “Economic Enterprise for Sustainability and Development” by virtue of Executive Order No. 4, Series of 2002 to operate, manage and sustain the hospital as a medical center.

SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union — Excelling in the five performance areas with eighteen service areas of the Local Governance Performance Management System (LGPMS), the province of La Union was adjudged as the Best Performing Local Government Unit (LGU) - provincial category in the recently concluded regional search.

The search is divided into three categories namely: provincial, city and municipal levels. Automatically, the four provinces and eight cities in the region are nominated for the search, whereas for the municipal level, the Department of the Interior and Local Government provincial directors evaluated the performance of their respective municipalities based on the State of Local Governance Reports (SLGRs) and recommended two municipalities per province as entries.

The Province of La Union excelled in almost all the service areas except in revenue allocation and utilization with a total of 94.43% rating, followed by Ilocos Norte, Pangasinan and Ilocos Sur.

For the city category, Vigan City of the province of Ilocos Sur topped the ratings with 89.31% followed by Laoag City and Urdaneta City.

For the municipal level, the municipality of Solsona, Ilocos Norte garnered the highest rating with 91.24% against its eight opponents. The municipality of Naguilian, La Union ranks second and San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte as third placer.

Final ratings had been determined after the site validation of the regional selection team composed of representatives from the Department of Economic and Development Authority, Department of Interior and Local Government, Philippine Information Agency and Department of Budget and Management, all of Region I, who evaluated the different LGUs’ program claims and clarify concerns/issues in the SLGR of the twenty participating LGUs where the top three LGUs (per category) had been adjudged as champions.

The performance areas where the LGUs had been rated are governance - 25% (with local legislation, transparency and citizen participation as service areas); administration - 35% (with financial accountability, development planning, resource generation, resource allocation and utilization, human resource management and development and customer service as service areas); social services - 25%(with health and nutrition, education, housing and basic utilities and peace, security and disaster preparedness as service areas); economic development - 10% (with agriculture and fisheries development, business, enterprise and industrial promotion as service areas); and environmental management - 10% (natural resources management, waste management and pollution control as service areas).

The search for Best Performing LGU is being patterned to the LGPMS framework, a self-assessment indicators system that allows local governments to determine their capabilities and limitations in the delivery of vital public services.

It is the second category in the performance awards initiated by the Regional Development Council-1 as per RDC-1 Resolution No. 58, s. 2005. The Search for LGU Best Practices (1st category) was conducted sometime December 2005.

The top three champions in the different categories of the search will be awarded trophies during the 1st RDC Meeting for CY 2006 scheduled this April. (By Jennilyne O. Casimiro PIA Ilocos)