ILOILO City – Twenty-five barangays here flunked the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) assessment of their road clearing operations that started in August last year.
Iloilo City has 180 barangays. Of these, DILG-Iloilo completed evaluating 120.
DILG-Iloilo City director Roy Defiño declined to identify the 25 barangays. It would be better to complete the evaluation of the remaining barangays first, he said.
After the assessment is done, DILG-Iloilo City would be submitting a report to Mayor Jerry Treñas, said Defiño.
The evaluation started last month.
Defiño also said DILG-Iloilo City had long anticipated the recently issued Memorandum Circular 2020-027 (Road Clearing 2.0) of Secretary Eduardo Año reminding local government units (LGUs) to continue clearing roads and sidewalks of obstructions.
Año gave LGUs 75 days beginning Feb. 17 to clear the remaining obstructions and to make sure that those already cleared are maintained as such.
“After the 75-day period, we will again conduct a validation,” said Defiño.
Administrative charges for gross negligence or dereliction of duty would be filed against the city mayor and barangay captains of villages that would fail in the evaluation.
Mayor Jerry Treñas assured barangay councils that the city government’s Task Force on Anti-Squatting and Illegal Structures (Task Force ASIS) will be assisting them, especially those having a hard time with private properties.
“We are going to support them. We will provide what they need,” said Treñas.
The clearing operations will now include local and tertiary roads, as stated in DILG Memorandum Order 2020-027.
LGUs must do the following:
* enact or review existing ordinances in relation to the road clearing operation
* conduct an inventory of roads within their jurisdiction
* conduct regular removal of obstructions in provincial, city, municipal, barangay roads, and national primary and secondary roads
* implement a displacement strategy for those affected by the operation
* rehabilitate cleared roads
* establish a grievance mechanism through which citizens can report unremoved obstructions, provide suggestion, or voice out implementation concerns
Provincial governors are also directed to ensure the compliance of city and municipal mayors and conduct regular interface with the mayors to discuss the implementation of the directive. They are likewise tasked to ensure that provincial ordinances and issuances are in line with the DILG directive on road clearing.
City and municipal mayors are expected to monitor compliance of barangays in the road clearing efforts of the national government.
Additional parameters in the new order were the feedback mechanism for the people to immediately report roads that have obstructions and to complain of the inaction of the barangay officials.
Local chief executives who will fail to comply with the order will be given a show cause order.
Their response will be used to determine if administrative charges will be filed against them.
Also, rehabilitation of the cleared roads should also be maintained by the villages.
Año warned that non-complying village chiefs would be charged.
“ We recognize that the barangays have the No. 1 responsibility in keeping their roads obstruction-free so under Road Clearing 2.0 we will also assess the performance of the barangays and file appropriate charges if necessary,” he said./PN