Abdul-Azim D.

Ontok
Nominee, 13th and 14th Congressional Internship Program for Young Mindanao Leaders
Journal #7
June 13, 2012

The empowerment of local government units (LGUs) is ideally a great means of

developing the communities as well as reaching out those economically deprived areas
by giving them their basic needs and services through the LGUs.
Before the formal discussion in the morning, Dr. Ati gave the nominees a brief
overview of the activities next week. He further advised us to be consistent and to
uphold to our principles and ideas. Finally, he gave emphasis on the good manners and
right conduct of nominees as one of the criteria in the selection of the official interns of
CIPYML.
Todays resource person is Prof. Norkaya Mohamad which is currently a faculty
member of the College of Public Affairs in MSU Marawi. Her topic was the Local
Government Units: Its Powers, Functions and Services. She gave primary importance
to the decentralization programs of our government. She also defined the roles of LGUs
as stated in the Local Government Code of 1991 or RA 7160. In reality, many of these
functions are not practiced which minimizes the effectiveness and efficiency of different
LGUs.
The hierarchical structure of local governments was also discussed by Prof.
Mohamad. According to her, the basic political unit of the state is the barangays which
should consequently follow a bottom-up form of budgeting. The needs of the barangays
must be prioritized before any other level of local governance. She also presented the
different local special bodies and their functions as well as their compositions.

Finally, the morning session was brought into closure when she discussed about
the different approaches of people empowerment. Participation of the citizens in issues
such as removal of untruthful public officials and oppressive ordinances can be
practiced through the following: (1) mandatory consultations; (2) recall; (3) initiative and
referendum; and (4) mandatory public hearings.
As Dr. Ati have proclaimed, we had no class during the afternoon to give us a
break from the pressures of the different topics in the training. All of the nominees were
very happy about it.
With regards to the lecture of Prof. Mohamad, I wish she could have presented
her topic in a more interactive manner. She could have explained the topic in a more
intense way rather than being caught by the ideas stated on her PowerPoint
presentation.
Prof. Mohamad imparted to us a very important lesson: that through popular
participation of the people as well as the implementation of the devolved powers of the
national government by the different local government units, the goal of the creation of
the Local Government Code of 1991 will be realized and achieved.