BAGUIO CITY – The City Council approved on first reading a proposed ordinance strengthening and institutionalizing the Search for the Cleanest and Greenest Barangays that Need Improvement in the city, providing funds for the said endeavour and for other purposes.
The ordinance authored by Councilor Leandro B. Yangot, Jr. stated the Search for the Cleanest and Greenest and Barangays that Need Improvement is to give due recognition and incentives to barangays who actively contribute to the clean and green programs, projects and activities of the city and encourage barangays that are not compliant to the practice of a clean and green community to improve on their programs and projects.
Further, Yangot added the search will be designed to identify factors, issues and problems affecting the physical condition of each barangay, particularly cleanliness and orderliness, and it shall serve as an avenue for the preservation and protection of the environment and the maintenance of cleanliness of the city to sustain its image and reputation as the cleanest and greenest highly urbanized city in the country.
The ordinance also aims to encourage the barangays to innovate and continue with garbage segregation initiatives; to magnify the information and education campaign on waste segregation by encouraging the barangays to strengthen their programs teaching residents on proper segregation as well as to encourage segregation of garbage at source; and to promote healthy competition between and among all the 128 barangays in the city by giving incentives to winning barangays that exert more efforts in maintaining cleanliness in their area and aiming for a garbage-free community while encouraging the other non-winning barangays to exert more efforts in reaching the said goal.
Under the proposed ordinance, all the city’s 128 barangays are considered automatic contestants to the search and that a Judging Committee or the Panel of Judges will be created through an Administrative Order to be issued by the City Mayor and that in additional to the institutionalized guidelines, the Panel of Judges may formulate additional guidelines for the search, develop and evaluation tool, criteria and to identify a set of indicators as may be necessary.
The ordinance stipulated the Panel of Judges will conduct quarterly visitation and evaluation of all the 128 barangays and after their visits and evaluation, the panel will consolidate and tally their scores to come up with the winners based on the ratings of the barangays.
Winners for the search will be receiving a plaque and P100,000 for the first prize, a plaque and cash prize of P75,000 for the first runner up, a plaque and cash prize of P50,000 for the second runner-up while seven consolation prizes will receive certificates and P25,000 cash prize each and twelve barangays will be given certificates of appreciation for the city’s clean and green program
On the other hand, the top 20 barangays which are considered Barangays that Need Improvement shall also receive citation folders which contain the observations, and recommendations from the Panel of Judges for the search.
By Dexter A. See