Gwen downplays DILG list of best provinces without Cebu: ‘Irrelevant’

CEBU Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia dismissed as “irrelevant” the latest performance report of the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG), which didn’t rank Cebu among the top 10 “best-governed provinces” in the country.

Garcia  urged the DILG to be careful in releasing their reports.

Bohol topped the ratings with a score of 4.937  followed by  La Union, Bulacan, Negros Oriental, Pangasinan and Ilogos Norte in the first five.

In yesterday’s press conference, Governor Garcia showed  a copy of Cebu’s State of Local Governance Performance, Electronic Report.

The report  gave  the overall assessment of   local government units  based on  responses of the LGU’s Team to  questions provided in the Data Capture Forms. The LGU’s Team are composed mostly of department heads.

Although there was no overall rating for Cebu in the report, Cebu province still belongs to ratings  from   a score of 4 to 5,  Provincial DILG officer Jerome Gonzales told Cebu Daily News.

“LGPMS is not a contest of ranking. We do not have judges. We only have a data capture form. We’re still in the highest ranks,” Governor Garcia said.

The report was based on the DILG’s Local Government Performance Management System (LGPMS), a web-based, self-assessment tool.

Rounding out the top 10 provinces were Albay, Cavite, Compostela Valley,  and Tarlac. Tarlac, the tenth placer, scored 4.7773.

The study assesses the performance of cities and provinces in administrative, social, economic and environmental governance.

Other criteria are  transparency, participation and financial accountability. LGUs were scored with  1 as the lowest and 5 as the highest.

“It’s worse when these assessments are based on data that is taken from a form that presupposes that it would capture all pertinent data,” Garcia said yesterday.

“If, for example, certain achievements of an LGU are not considered important, and are therefore excluded from that form, does this now mean that each LGU is not well governed?” she asked. Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus