The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Region IX successfully hosted a two (2) day Regional Fieldmen’s Conference conducted on May 11-12, 2011 at Bay Plaza Hotel, Pagadian City.

In attendance were Assistant Regional Director Pedro G. Cuevas, Jr., Provincial Directors from Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga Sibugay; OIC-City Director of Zamboanga City, CLGOOs of Dipolog City, Dapitan City and Pagadian City; and the 67 Municipal Local Government Operations Officers (MLGOOs) of Zamboanga Peninsula. Likewise present were Regional Division Chiefs from Fiance and Administrative Division, Local Government Monitoring and Evaluation Division and Local Government Capacity Development Division.

Presided by Regional Director Paisal O. Abutazil, the objective of the conference is to thresh out issues affecting field operations and identify measures and strategies in order to improve regional performance and further solicit from the Field Officers their commitment resulting to improve work performance.

The activity served as a venue for the Field Officers to present their concerns to regional management and other related concerns contributory to non-compliance to directives and non-submission of reports, among other concerns, which are greatly affecting the performance level of DILG Region IX at the national level.

In the course of the conference, consolidated status report of compliance to directives by the local government units (LGUs) and Department programs, projects and activities were presented, for information and guidance of all concerned.

In his message, Director Abutazil enjoined the full support and cooperation of the field officers in order to improve DILG Region 9’s performance in terms of P/P/A implementation and to ensure compliance by the LGUs to Central Office directives, especially underscoring the compliance to the Full Disclosure Policy (FDP), a priority program of Secretary Jesse M. Robredo.

“I call on our Field Officers to work with management to help improve our region’s performance; Let us do our best to help and assist the LGU in achieving their goal of good governance and effective local governance,” RD Abutazil said.

Further, MLGOOs were grouped by clusters for the workshop proper, and output for the same shall serve as their commitment to regional management, directed towards efficient and effective basic service delivery at the local level.

In this regard, Field Officers signified their commitment during the ceremonial signing of the pledge of commitment.

During the open forum, various issues and concerns were raised by the field officers which regional management is bent on addressing, and thereby manifested to provide the Field Officers the necessary support, when sought from the latter.