Mayor Sara Duterte stands ground to work under a pro-active, responsive, efficient, and pro-people agenda for Davao City. Her Barangay Empowerment, Academe, Resource Generation, Peace and Order and Governance (BAROG for brevity) encapsulate her main thrusts and key strategies of a three-year city governance. This issue highlights various awards bestowed to the local government which gave a significant impact to the lives of the Dabawenyos.

BEST PRACTICE AWARD FOR LGU HIV PREVENTION

Davao City was awarded the Best Practice Award for LGU HIV Prevention for its outstanding performance, commitment and contribution to the activities of the Global Fund Round 6 HIV Project in the field of HIV Prevention.

The City’s successful information

campaign on HIV testing resulted to more individuals submitting themselves for testing and given education on HIV. The increasing number of recorded HIV positive patients shows that the city’s campaign on testing and awareness is gaining ground.

SEAL OF GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

The Department of the Interior and Local Government lauded the Davao City Government by conferring it with the Seal of Good Housekeeping in 2011, acknowledging its exemplary performance in accountability and transparency in public service.

The local government streamlined the bureaucracy espousing honesty in disclosing all its transactions to the public.

“The award was in recognition of our drive to advance the principles of accountability and transparency in local governance,” Mayor Sara Duterte said of the award.

The award system is conferred by the DILG to a local government to enforce the Anti-Red Tape Act and to encourage honesty in managing city funds as well as hinder corruption.

RED ORCHID AWARD

The Red Orchid Award, of which Davao City is a Hall of Famer, is an annual award bestowed by the Department of the Health to Local Government Units, Centers for Health Development, Government Hospitals and Government Offices for advocating 100% Tobacco-free environments and for strictly enforcing tobacco control measures.

Davao City has been in the forefront of the smoke-free campaign since it enacted its Comprehensive Anti-Smoking Ordinance in 2002, which was considered as the first exhaustive anti-smoking law in the country, well ahead of the 2003 Tobacco Regulation Act.

The City Council recently approved the Expanded Anti-Smoking Ordinance with salient features that include the banning of new forms of smoking, like e-cigarettes and sishas, expanding the definition of public spaces to include streets and the provision of citation tickets, which cuts the process of putting fines against violators. Smoking citations let deputized enforcers issue citations to violators where they can pay the fine directly.

PRESIDENTIAL AWARD FOR CHILD-FRIENDLY MUNICIPALITIES AND CITIES

The Presidential Award for the Child-Friendly Municipalities and Cities is initiated by the Council for the Welfare of Children and is conferred on deserving local government units in recognition of their vital role in the sustained promotion of children’s rights to survival, development, protection and participation as well as in ensuring child-friendly governance.

This recognition, according to Mayor Sara Duterte, is one that every Dabawenyo should be proud of because this gives priority to the heirs of our city.

“It was a bittersweet triumph as we waited 13 years to once again claim this prestigious honor. It was a challenge to change the perception of how we take care of our minors

especially those who are in conflict with law,” the Mayor said during her State of the City Address.

Davao City’s best advantage over the other cities was its landmark legislation, the Children’s Welfare Code of 1994. Other programs of the city for the youth include the Early Childhood Care and Development, the Barangay Council for Children and the Local Development Plan for Children, among others. The City Government also completed the upgrading of the Paginhawaan Drop-in Center for Street Children and the Quick Response Team for Children’s Concerns and the Davao City Children’s Village at Barangay Bago Oshiro, Tugbok District.

NATIONAL LITERACY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LGU, Highly Urbanized City Category

Awarded annually by the National Literacy Coordinating Council (NLCC) and the Department of Education (DepEd), the latest award placed Davao City in the Hall of Fame as it won the same award in 2008 and 2010.

Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte is exceptionally proud of this award and has expressed gratitude to barangays, national government agencies and the private sector who have contributed to make the recognition possible. “It is our hope that other Mindanao Local Government Units will learn from the Davao experience,” the Mayor said.

An executive summary of the award documents submitted to NLCC and DepEd indicated that the city has long pursued programs and projects designed to address challenges surrounding the illiteracy problem.

As of the 2010 census, 98.5 percent of Davao City’s population aged 10 years and over are considered literate. The population of 10 years old and above is 1.05 million or 73.06 percent of the city’s total population of 1,449,296. The high literacy percentage shows the impact of the sustained efforts and hard work resulting from the dedicated partnership of the city government and other stakeholders.

NATIONAL BEST PESO AWARD

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) named the Davao City Public Employment Services Office (PESO) the 2011 National Champion for Best PESO for the highly urbanized city category for its tremendous performance in providing employment opportunities to the public.

The award system is given by the DOLE to a PESO in the local government, non-governmental organization and school-based organization, acknowledging its practices in employment programs and accomplishments.

The award was attributed by the Special Program for Employment of Students which helped 1,636 students get jobs, the facilitation of 17 job fairs, the referral of 22,646 applicants to various companies that resulted to 2,717 new employments, and the organization of special recruitment of 59 agencies and the assistance given to 3,176 job seekers to go out of the country.

Factors also include the number of job opportunities posted which was acknowledged as the most by DOLE, the effective implementation of employment program of

DOLE, for being a semi-institutionalized PESO, and for being the recipient of 2011 Phil-Job Net National Award.

Produced by