BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved on first reading a proposed ordinance appropriating the amount of P4 million which will be incorporated in the proposed supplemental budget of the local government this year for the conduct of a massive information drive and public hearings as well as the budget for the conduct of a plebiscite for the proposed rationalization of barangays in the city.
The ordinance authored by Councilor Leandro B. Yangot, Jr. stated the need for the provision of funds to bankroll the conduct of the required information campaign and public hearings that will be called for the purpose of getting the sentiments of the people on the proposed merger of the city’s barangays and the conduct of the public hearings for similar purposes.
Further, Yangot added part of the funds that will be appropriated will be used by the local government to fund the conduct of the subsequent plebiscite that will be required by law to get the conformity of the electorate on the agreed merger of the city’s 128 barangays into a desired number compliant to the provisions of the Local government code of the Philippines.
Section 385 of the Code provides that a barangay may be created, provided, merged, abolished, or its boundaries substantially altered, by law or by an ordinance of the SangguniangPanalalwigan or SangguniangPanlungsod subject to approval by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite to be conducted by the Commission on elections (Comelec).
Pending before the City Council Committee on Barangay Affairs is a proposed ordinance rationalizing the number of barangays in the city to conform with the provisions of the Local government code which provides that a highly urbanized city shall have a certified population of at least 5,000 inhabitants per barangay, rationalize the number of city barangays to a manageable number which seeks to enhance development in the barangays, professionalize governance, administration and service to the barangays, including their financial and administrative stature, to allow the local government to increase its aid to the barangays from the present P30,000 per barangay to at least P500,000 per barangay or even more aside from the other assistance provided by the city in terms of projects and programs, to provide for the standardization of salaries of barangay heads and council members which will redound to the benefit of their constituents and to make it easier to manage on the part of the local government apart from the fact that it would in effect help the city comply with the requirements of the Local Government code on the set up of barangays and in order to present a permanent solution to the boundary disputes and other problems involving the barangays proposed to be merged.
Yangot pointed out considering the fact that the proposed local legislative measure involves all the city’s barangays in the city and the conduct of the mandatory plebiscite to realize the merger of barangays, there is a need to conduct a massive information drive and public hearings for all the 128 barangays as well as for all concerned to extensively deliberate and thresh out all issues and concerns surrounding the proposed merger of barangays.
Earlier, Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan issued Administrative Order (AO) No. 024, series of 2017 dated March 3, 2017 which created a special committee to take the lead in the preparatory phase and process for the proposed merging of the city’s 128 barangays in the city.
By Dexter A. See