COUPLE Salvador Soliven, 37, and Rowena Ricaide, 29, were relieved as they walked out of the municipal hall of Santa Fe, Nueva Vizcaya, one Wednesday afternoon.

The bride, an overseas Filipino worker who came home to prepare for her wedding, had wondered how long it would take to process and secure all requirements before they could be issued a marriage license. Much to their delight, they finished all requirements in just two hours after entering the civil registrar’s office.

The couple is among hundreds who have reaped the benefits of what has been deemed a much-improved system of government service in Santa Fe, the mountain gateway to Cagayan Valley.

A “quick-response” practice is embedded in the town’s Citizen’s Charter program, which outlines guidelines on how municipal employees must respond to the needs of the people, especially those who go to the town hall for various reasons.

“The Charter mandates that a client should not wait idly for someone to attend to him for more than 15 minutes. In many of the offices, we require that under ordinary circumstances, a client should have been able to accomplish his purpose in that office within an hour,” says Mayor Florante Gerdan.

The Citizen’s Charter is one of Gerdan’s programs that revolve around the principle of people participation in governance. For these efforts, Gerdan was chosen one of the seven new “Champions of Good Governance” by Kaya Natin! a movement promoting transparency, social accountability, people empowerment and electoral reforms in governance.

The charter is one of the products of Gerdan’s style of leadership, which centers on consultations and dialogues with Santa Fe’s residents, officials and employees, and members of non-government and religious groups, schools and other sectors.

Many of them volunteers, they comprise what is now called “PART” – Panagtitimpuyog para ti Agnanayon nga Rang-ay dagiti Tattao (Collaboration for Lasting Progress among the People) –which maps out plans on how the municipality can help improve the lives of residents.

Crusade

The road to reform began in 2004, when Gerdan was first elected mayor. Faced with a bureaucratic system “steeped in the politics of patronage” and “highly partisan, unwilling and uncooperative,” Gerdan tackled his first challenge: How to make the municipality and its workers responsive to the needs of residents.

“We had difficulty instituting change because of political reasons. Naturally, people resist change because for them, it is a painful process,” says Gerdan, a retired Army captain who partly blames his rigid leadership style on 11 years of military service.

Besides, he was fighting an age-old practice, a conflict between traditional and nontraditional styles of governance – one that revolved around doles and handouts as opposed to one anchored on people’s consultation and participation.

Municipal employees, who were staunch supporters of Gerdan’s political rivals, resisted his programs. The bureaucracy could not care less about work output, the mayor says.

Gerdan says many employees, especially those on permanent posts, were content on waiting for work to fall on their laps, uncaring as to how much they could accomplish for the day. After all, they got their salaries on pay day. As a result, services suffered.

In 2007, the municipal government put up a performance management system (PMS) to monitor the work of each employee and to serve as an accurate basis for promotions and rewards.

Better incentives

Inspired by the prospects of better incentives, Gerdan says employees now grab every task as an opportunity to earn productivity points. The smile and gratitude of a pleased town mate are a welcome bonus, says Edgar Dulawan, 61, municipal human resources officer.

“Nobody wants to stay idle. He or she must always have something to do, otherwise, he does not earn enough productivity points for that day,” Dulawan says.

The points are accumulated and at the end of the month, the employee with the most number of points gets the Best Performing Employee of the Month Award, receiving a cash incentive and a plaque of recognition.

The rewards get bigger for the yearend awards, says Rolando Carreon, an administrative assistant.

Department heads were also among the subjects of Gerdan’s mission to start a paradigm shift in the local government, transforming a “just-an-employee” mind-set to being and performing like managers.

“By doing what they are empowered, now they are the ones drafting policies [while] I just guide them. They are now the ones assessing the performance of their employees,” he says.

Fruits

With every employee inspired, Santa Fe is slowly gaining the fruits of hard work. Malnutrition rate dropped from a high of 204 cases to 129, earning for the town the best nutrition program in Nueva Vizcaya in 2008. The treasury has more than doubled its annual target of revenues from taxes.

“We have to instill in the mind of our constituents and our employees that just like in the private sector, our town government should also be run like a corporation. Whenever government funds are spent, these should have [a return on investment] after helping beneficiaries,” Gerdan says.