‘Gov’t workers supporting Cordillera autonomy quest’

BAGUIO CITY – The Regional Development Council  in the Cordillera said  government workers are now supporting quest for regional autonomy and signified support to grassroots information education campaign being undertaken for the third crack at achieving self-governance.

Dr. Virgilio C. Bautista, RDC-CAR co-chairman, said the combined efforts of the government and private sector representatives in trying to educate the people on the renewed quest for regional autonomy is gaining ground and is yielding positive results that could help convince higher authorities to make the autonomy bill a priority administration measure.

Based on recent consultations with employees of the regional offices of the Department of Education and Commission on Audit, he said the awareness of the government workers on autonomy was very low, thus, the need for them to extensively explain the real essence of achieving self-governance which is making permanent the region’s identity with increased powers to govern ourselves and control the region’s resources.

However, Bautista said based on the survey conducted by the speakers bureau after consultations with the concerned employees, more than 54 percent of them have already become aware of the benefits of autonomy and assured to strongly support it once there will be a campaign for its ratification in the future.

“We are happy that our combined information and education campaign efforts are gaining support from the grassroots and more people now understand why we are reiterating our clamor for self-governance,” Bautista said.

He added it is good that government workers realized that their existence in the region is because of the earlier clamor of those who fought for autonomy that eventually led to the 1986 Mount Data peace agreement between former President Corazon C. Aquino and the late Fr. Conrado Balweg that paved the way for the issuance of Executive Order 220 creating the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Under EO 220, government workers were given three duties and responsibilities, particularly to administer the affairs of government in the region, accelerate the socio-economic condition and infrastructure development and prepare the region for autonomy.

During the 2007 sampling survey conducted by the RDC-CAR to determine the understanding of people on autonomy, 70 percent of the employees of a government agency were said to be opposed to the renewed quest for regional autonomy which means that they are remised in their third function to prepare the region for autonomy considering that they are not even sensitive to the renewed quest for self-governance that allowed them to be employed in the region.

Bautista admitted despite the initial gains in the information and education campaign on autonomy, there is still a need for all stakeholders to work double time in order to download the right information to the grassroots and be able to inculcate to them the importance of achieving self-governance that will allow robust development in the countryside.

 He added the RDC-CA will be conducting a pulse survey in the region within the next two months to ascertain whether or not more people are now becoming aware and will support the region’s renewed quest for regional autonomy.