City gains ‘impressive results’ in governance system

Transparency and strong public-private partnership led the City of San Fernando to be the first city in the Philippines to achieve a Performance Governance System (PGS)-institutionalized status.

“We did not do anything extraordinary. We simply did our job,” said the Mayor of City of San Fernando Oscar Rodriguez during a press briefing at the Ascott Makati on Thursday.

Based on the performance audit findings conducted by the Universal Access to Competitiveness and Trade (U-ACT), San Fernando delivered impressive results in the implementation of its governance system.

As one of the Institute for Solidarity in Asia’s (ISA) partners, the city adopted the PGS as its governance framework in 2005.

In the past five years, the City of San Fernando has achieved more than 100 percent growth in business enterprises, 33 percent growth in local income, and a high constituency satisfaction rating for efficient delivery of services.

Processing time for the issuance of business permits was streamlined from six weeks to two hours.

In his audit findings, U-ACT Executive Director Ryan Patrick Evangelista said that with the creation and institutionalization of the Multi-Stakeholder Governance Council (MSGC), the city has achieved an effective governance model for pubic-private partnership that deviates from partisan politics.

In the same findings, it said: “the City if San Fernando was successful in increasing the level of dynamism and cohesiveness of the legislative-executive dialogue process to ensure public accountability.”

This paved the way for the enactment of a new Revenue Code, Market Code, Environment Code and Revision to the Property Tax Administration.

It also “successfully initiated substantial reforms in the conduct of business processes and transactions, improving the issuance of business permits and licensing and real property tax assessment through an ISO-certified management system.”

Evangelista said that the city has reduced its dependence from the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) and substantially increased its revenues.

Citing the “Sagip Ilog” project, the City of San Fernando also attracted support and assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency in implementing engineering and infrastructure programs.

“Every employee has a scorecard. We try to award our people’s efforts through their performance,” Rodriguez said.

He also said that Philippine Government System helped the City of San Fernando focus on strategy.

“We urged businessmen to pay taxes properly, we established a city college without asking any help from the national government and we attract serious investors for the city,” he said.

Former city administrator Sonia Soto said, “You will not see this in a typical LGU.”

She said that the Philippines would become a better country if all local government units will adopt the Performance Government System.

“PGS made me more committed in serving the people even I am out of the government,” said Soto, who now works as the vice president and general manager of CLTV36—a television station in Central Luzon.

The City of San Fernando’s success story will be showcased in the ISA Public Governance Forum on August 26 and 27 at the Sofitel Philippines Plaza.

Other best practice case studies in the forum include Balanga (Bataan), Bani (Pangasinan), Iloilo and the Accounting profession. They will report on how their organizations are using the Philippine Government System to improve performance and institute governance reforms.

Non-partisan

The ISA is an independent non-partisan, not-for-profit institution that seeks to improve public governance through citizen participation.

It is a governance reform institute that forms a network of business corporations and civil society institutions committed to good governance through responsible citizenship.

It promotes the sharing of positive experiences among communities in East Asia. — Joey Aguilar, Manila Times