“Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) or Pagkilala sa Katapatan at Kahusayan ng Pamahalaang Lokal is the mother of all programs and projects in the LGU” said Paisal O. Abutazil, Regional Director, of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Region IX during the orientation conference on the CY 2014 programs and projects for DILG IX field officers early this month.

RD Abutazil added that the SGLG originated from SGH, which piloted in 2010, promotes transparency and accountability in local operations where 84% of the LGUs across the country in 2012 are SGH recipients showing a high percentage of LGUs readiness for greater challenges. Hence, SGLG is introduced to challenge local governments to continue good governance practices while providing better public services.
” To say, SGLG is the up-scaled version of the SGH. Parameters are elevated where it applies the “3 plus 1 principles”. This means that an LGU needs to pass all the three (3) core assessment areas such as Good Financial Housekeeping, Social Protection and Disaster Preparedness and at least one (1) from the essential assessment areas such as Business-friendliness and Competitiveness, Peace and Order and Environmental Management”. said RD Abutazil
He added that the role of the DILG here is to capacitate the LGUs in the Capacity building activities, trainings and technical assistance to cite a few.
“If the LGU qualifies SGLG, the LGU is eligible to access capacity development initiatives of the department and other agencies and entitles them on Performance Challenge Fund (PCF) incentives, access to program windows of the NGAs, continuing CapDev and access to loans” RD Abutazil assured.
“However, for the LGUs that will not pass the SGLG, there will be continuing CapDev intervention to address the weaker areas of the LGU. This is according to Sec. Mar Roxas, ” Walang Iwanan”. Hence, DILG will help LGUs that do not pass the SGLG through capacity development assistance. It can be carried out by working together (Clustering), communicating and complementing one another to the LGU and other partner agencies,” he added.
RD Abutazil emphasized that the assessment of the LGU to be conducted this year is not a fault-finding activity rather a good initiative to a continuing challenge for provincial, city and municipal governments to do better today and in the years to come.