Benguet, Kalinga win Gawad Pamana ng Lahi Awards

By Carlito C. Dar

BAGUIO CITY - - The Department of Interior and Local Government- Cordillera Regional Office conferred the theGawadPamanangLahi award to the Benguet provincial government; the City of Tabuk, Kalinga and the municipality of Balbalan, Kalinga as this year’s regional winners.

The Gawad Pamana ngLahi Award is among the good governance program of the Aquino government through the DILG, which recognizes the transparency and accountability efforts of various local government units nationwide.

The regional awardees received plaques of recognition, and checks of P3 million, P2 million and P1 million for the provincial, city and the municipality category awardees, respectively, for the funding of their respective proposed. projects.

For the provincial government of Benguet, its P3 million monetary prize will be used for the construction of the bleacher section of the provincial multi-purpose gymnasium.

For Tabuk City, it will be utilized for the improvement of road along Umangil Street in the city, while for Balabalan, its P1 million prize money will be used for the improvement of the municipality’s sanitary landfill access road.

The awarding was held at the City Light Hotel, Thursday, during the regional convention on issues and prospects of regional autonomy and seal of good housekeeping.

In the said event which was attended by local chief executives in the region, DILG director John Castañeda gave a presentation on the national government’s good governance flagship program under the DILG, which aside from the Gawad Paman ngLahi, include the Seal of Goof Housekeeping, Performance Challenge Fund, Sagana at Ligtas naTubig Para saLahat, and Pamana (Payapa at Masagana ng Pamayanan).

RDC Co-chair Dr. Virgilio Bautista and National Economic and Development Authority Regional Director Milagros Rimando also presented the salient points of House Bill 5595 for the establishment of a Cordillera Autonomous Region now pending in Congress, the development gaps that the move for an autonomous region can address and the result of the latest RDC pulse survey on the awareness of Cordillerans to the region’s pursuit of regional autonomy and development.