DILG to issue show cause orders to officials why didn’t comply with order to clear roads, sidewalks

October 22, 2019

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Tuesday said they issued show cause orders to at least 101 local government officials and 99 barangay chairpersons in Manila City for failing to comply with President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to clear sidewalks and roads.

In a press briefing, DILG spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said though the number of local government units who complied increase, the number of those who did not also went up.

“And we are awaiting for their reply on why they were not able to comply with the president’s directive and why they should not be suspended,” he added.

“The validation team validated 1, 516 LGUs from the previous figure of 1,245. And of this number, the number of highly compliant LGUs increased by 18 percent or from 327 to 387. There is also a 28 percent in the LGUs with medium compliance, from 498 to 635 and another 22 percent increase was noted in the low compliant range from 323 to 393,” Malaya said.

“The number of failed LGUs also increased and is now 101 from the previous 97,” he added.

The indicators used by the DILG to gauge the LGU compliance are passing of ordinances, inventory of road, road clearing operations, displacement strategies and rehabilitation of public roads and grievance mechanism.

“We believe that sustained operations are the key to the success in the national road clearing company. Thus, our mayors should exert maximum effort by eliciting the support of your barangay officials and constituents,” said Malaya.

“We urge those with low compliance to treat this as opportunity for you to do better and scale up your initiatives will improve in the next round of validation this December,” he added.

Most compliant regions were the National Capital Region (NCR), Region 2 (Cagayan Valley), Region 4A (Calabarzon), Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) and Region 3 (Central Luzon).

“We expect the continued cooperation of all governors, cities and municipal mayors and punong barangays (barangay captain) nationwide,” the spokesperson said.

Undersecretary for Barangay Affairs Martin Dino said he will release a show cause order against 99 barangays in Manila.

“The people are looking on the maintenance on the clearing operation conducted by the mayors, MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority), city engineering and the police. That’s why in Manila alone, I will issue show cause order against 99 barangays,” said  

“This is only the first batch. They will explain why they failed to maintain the (road clearing) done by Mayor Isko Moreno (Francisco Domagoso),” Dino added.

Dino said they have up to five days to answer.

“And if they failed to do so, I will recommend to the city council of Manila  their suspension,” he said.

He added barangay officials may also face dismissal from service if the DILG found out they are allowing illegal parking and illegal sidewalk vendors.

DILG reminded LGU officials that the road clearing project does not end within the 60-day period given by Duterte.

“We ask all barangay officials to take their program seriously,” said Malaya.

Once respondents failed to answer the DILG they may recommend suspension to Duterte or file a case at the Ombudsman or the city council. Ella Dionisio/DMS