BAGUIO CITY – Vice Mayor Faustino A. Olowan challenged the over 1,800 work force of the local government to continue rendering genuine public service, especially to the marginalized sectors to help them move out from the shackles of poverty.
The presiding officer of the local legislative body stated that officials and employees are lucky because they have been chosen to occupy positions in the city hall with substantial compensation, thus, they must render the appropriate service to the people from whom they are drawing their salaries through the taxes paid to the government.
He underscored that the members of the marginalized sectors in the city are the ones who actually need the services from local government offices but are often deprived of these needed services to meet their basic needs.
“We are lucky in the local government because we have stable jobs that are our source of income to help us from being impoverished in the future,” Vice Mayor Olowan stressed.
According to him, there are still members of the marginalized sectors in the city even if Baguio is a highly urbanized thus government officials and employees should not discriminate in rendering services because they actually draw their salaries from the taxes paid by the people to the government.
Olowan emphasised that genuine public services has no bounds and whoever requests the different offices of the city government for needed services should be given the appropriate treatment they deserve regardless of their status in life.
He challenged the local government officials and employees not only be satisfied with the job they already have and the compensation they are receiving as the gauge of success of those in service is the satisfaction of the people they served or assisted.
More importantly, he claimed the services rendered to the public should be given without strings attached in line with the respective oaths of office where they swore to render quality service to the public without mental reservation or purpose of evasion.
Olowan urged officials and employees to heed the challenge of providing genuine public service to the people in conformity with the present administration’s bid to speed up government action on the issues and concerns being brought to their offices for timely and appropriate action to the satisfaction of the clients at the end of the day.
Olowan disclosed that much good had been said about the quality of services rendered by the different offices of the local government but the same should serve as an inspiration and motivation for the work force to further elevate the services they are rendering to levels that warrants greater satisfaction from the people transacting businesses with the city.
By Dexter A. See
Photo by Rosa Moresto