Iloilo City launches Citizen’s Charter Guidebook
The city government on Tuesday launched its Citizen’s Charter Guidebook simultaneous with the opening of its public assistance and feedback center in compliance with Republic Act 9485, otherwise known as the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.
The charter “is a service standard that communicates information on the services provided by concerned government agencies to the public and provides the step-by-step procedure for availing a particular service and the guaranteed performance level that is expected of the service.”
Iloilo City is the first highly-urbanized city (HUC) in Western Visayas to come up with a Citizen’s Charter that will ensure the efficient and effective delivery of government services.
“This Citizen’s Charter will make our operations more efficient and once we have an efficient government we can expect more efficient, better taxpayers,” Mayor Jerry P. Treñas said.
The charter contains the city’s mission, vision, history, map core values and directory of various city offices and emergency hotlines.
Likewise included are the organizational structure and frontline services and flowcharts; feedback and redress mechanism and location map of public assistance and feedback center.
“It is good that we already have a measurable period for us to deliver services. Hopefully, we will be faithful to this period; let us make sure that we be faithful to this,” the mayor added.
Civil Service Commission (CSC) Director IV, Atty. Rodolfo B. Encajonado, meantime, said the strict implementation of the Citizen’s charter would redefine the delivery of frontline services being catered by different, agencies, offices and units in your local government unit (LGU).
“The improvement of public service delivery more particularly the efficiency in the delivery of government services to the public is not farfetched and is attainable or achievable. This is your commitment to the agency, clients and other stakeholders that you will abide by the standards that you have established in catering or delivering the kind of services that they wanted to enjoy from us,” Encajonado said.
Interior and Local Government regional director Evelyn Trompeta, on the other hand, congratulated the city government for heeding calls to make a difference.
“The formulation of the Citizen’s Charter is one of the innovations thought of to improve the efficiency and delivery of frontline services,” she said. “The charter represents the commitment of employees of the Iloilo City and the city government towards standard, quality and time-framed service delivery, transparency and accountability.”
Trompeta also expressed their agency’s gratefulness to the city government for complying with the provisions of the law.
“If implementation is assured, if you have committed enough, if you give full cooperation this will be the legacy of Mayor Jerry Treñas. This book is not merely a book; this will spell out your commitment for a very transparent, accountable, efficient, and effective services to the people of Iloilo City,” she stressed.
Thelma Golez, chairman of the task force that was tasked by Mayor Treñas to come up with the charter, also recognized the efforts of various city offices that assisted in the coming up of the charter.
She said coming up with the document was not at all difficult because of the support coming from concerned city offices. (PNA)