The Department of Social Welfare Development-Bicol (DSWD-5) is preparing for and providing technical upgrading and capacity building to its employees who will be affected by the Supreme Court's Mandanas-Garcia ruling.
On Thursday, DSWD-5 regional director Leo Quintilla said in an interview on the sidelines of his State of the Region Address that some 700 of their employees will lose their jobs once the ruling is enforced anytime this year because their functions will be devolved to the local government units (LGUs).
He stated that they want to ensure that the employees who will be laid off are given top priority in the hiring programs of their respective LGUs.
"For LGUs, these DSWD staffs are already trained, they know the programs and services, and they can implement it immediately, then it already solves half of their problems," Quintilla said.
He added that DSWD-Bicol will terminate its eight welfare services such as the supplementary feeding program, assistance to persons with disabilities, comprehensive program for street children, program for older persons, recovery and reintegration program for trafficked persons, assistance to individuals in a crisis, sustainable livelihood program and the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS).
As part of their approach and phasing of devolution transition, Quintilla said at least four programs will be devolved to LGUs this year, two for 2023 and two for 2024.
Devolution is the delegation of power to a lower level, especially by the central government to the local administration.
"With money from the national government being shifted to the LGUs, funds for key social welfare services of the DSWD will now be transferred to them. This means that LGUs will have an expanded role and funding to directly implement these programs and services," Quintilla said.
He conveyed relative to the full devolution, DSWD-Bicol will still aid the LGUs in policy development, research development, capacity building, technical assistance standards-setting and regulatory function.
"We will also help in the resource augmentation, monitoring and evaluation, and program evaluation and program audit," he noted.
Quintilla said part of their communication strategy is to guarantee that the programs will be continuous even if there is a change of administration among LGUs.
"Our advocacy, in different LGUs officials starting with our local social welfare officers, is to communicate with our chief executive and Sanggunian of their role in the devolution," he added.
The Mandanas-Garcia ruling of the High Tribunal resulted from the petition made by Batangas Governor Hermilando Mandanas and former Bataan Governor Enrique Garcia Jr. on LGUs' shares on the internal revenue allotment in 2013.
The decision stipulates that the just share of LGUs, also known as Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), must be calculated using all national taxes, and not just from National Internal Revenue Taxes, including other taxes such as those collected by the Bureau of Customs and other agencies authorized to collect the NIRT.
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