TANDAG CITY, Surigao del Sur -- Five local government units from Surigao del Sur were included in the shortlist to possibly qualify for the 2023 Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) national validation, according to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

Florian Faith Bayawa Jr., assistant division chief of DILG  Caraga, said that of the 19 LGUs in the region that were validated, five are potential passers, while 14 LGUs are conditional passers with pending requests for appeal and data verification.

Of the five potential passers, three of which are from the province of Surigao del Sur namely, Tandag City and the municipalities of Hinatuan, and Carmen.

For the LGUs tagged as conditional passers, the municipalities of Cagwait, and Carrascal, all in Surigao del Sur are included in the lists.

Accordingly, this year is the second year of the implementation of Republic Act No. 11292 or the SGLG Act of 2019, an institutionalized award, incentive, honor, and recognition based-program that gauges the performance of LGUs on the 10 different governance areas such as:
1. Financial administration and sustainability;
2. Disaster preparedness;
3. Social protection and sensitivity;
4. Health compliance and responsiveness;
5. Sustainable education;
6. Business-friendliness and competitiveness;
7. Safety, peace and order;
8. Environmental management;
9. Tourism, heritage development, culture and arts; and
10. Youth development.

DILG revealed that this year, performance is further upgraded to  measure the outcome-oriented efforts of the LGUs.

Meanwhile, Bayawa emphasized that the inclusion in the shortlist for the national validation does not automatically guarantee the passing to the SGLG. 

"There will be other stages of the assessment, such as the presentation of the results to, and deliberation of, the Council of the Good Local Governance (CGLG)," Bayawa clarified. (NGPB, PIA-Surigao del Sur)