DILG to LGUs: Pass budget ordinances; no fund for new projs under reenacted ones

By Pamela Mariz T. Opiniano  

BAGUIO CITY— The Dept. of the Interior and Local Government Cordillera urged all local chief executives, vice-governors, vice-mayors, and Sanggunian members to ensure timely submission and passage of their Local Annual Appropriation Ordinance or face lack of funds for new projects under a re-enacted budget.
    The DILG said this was intended to end practice of re-enacting the budget so development and fiscal reforms shall not be impeded.
     "We are urging our local officials to pass their Appropriations Ordinance on time because we do not want to defer the implementation of new and important government programs, projects, and services,” said DILG OIC regional director Araceli San Jose last week.
    “Not adhering to prescribed timelines and having re-enacted budgets will undoubtedly impede our efforts to combat Covid-19 and other natural disasters, also especially as we gear towards full-devolution this year and try to bounce better and stronger,” she added.
    In the exercise of its general supervision over provinces and highly urbanized cities, the DILG shall require elective local officials who will fail to submit and or enact appropriation ordinance within the given timeline to submit a written explanation under oath for the non-feasance in enacting the annual appropriation ordinance.
    While, in the exercise of its supervision over the component LGUs, the province with respect to component cities and municipalities and city and municipality with respect to barangays were also to require the same.
     San Jose said only annual appropriations for salaries and wages of existing positions, statutory and contractual obligations, and essential operating expenses authorized in the preceding year's annual and supplemental budgets shall be deemed re-enacted.
    She said no new positions will be created, as well as no new programs, projects, or activities will be implemented.
    Non-recurring activities, no matter how important they are, and no supplemental appropriations shall not be implemented under a re-enacted budget.  
    This, as San Jose said the DILG Cordillera will use Quality Assessment Tool to ensure good quality and responsiveness of devolution transition plans (DTPs) of local government units.
    San Jose who is also co-chairperson of Cordillera Committee on Devolution (ComDev), said the DTP quality assessment is the first phase of the DTP analytics and serves as monitoring and evaluation activity based on the 2019 Full Devolution Roadmap.
    The QAT will serve as an internal-level assessment process of the quality and compliance of DTPs based on prescribed guidelines.
     "It is critical to develop quality DTPs because these will serve as roadmaps of LGUs to ensure strategic, systematic, and coherent actions toward their full assumption of devolved functions and services beginning this year, 2022," she said.
    She said assessors from each assessment level (provincial, highly urbanized city, municipalities, and barangay levels) will conduct rapid assessment of LGU DTPs based on three parameters.
    Parameter 1 (form completeness) refers to the accuracy of forms submitted in accordance with DBM-DILG joint memorandum circular (JMC) No. 2021-1, as reflected in the DILG DTP repository. parameter 2 (process and alignment) refers to the integration of DTPs across LGUs as well as the legitimization of DTPs by their respective Sanggunians, while parameter 3 (coherence and completeness) assesses the consistency of the LGU DTP's functions, services, facilities, and capacity development agenda.
    The presence or absence of required indicators in each of assessment parameters will be used to determine whether the LGU DTP is fully compliant, partially compliant, or non-compliant with guidelines.
    The results of the LGU DTP quality assessment will be submitted to the DILG and will be used to design subsequent activities and references of regional line agencies (RLAs), civil society organizations (CSOs), learning resource institutions, and other stakeholders in providing technical assistance to LGUs in improving their DTPs.