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LOCAL DEVELOPMENT. Xavier Ateneo Governance and Leadership Institute director Dr Dixon Yasay shares on local development planning during the Development Legislative Enhancement Course at the University of the Philippines - Diliman. Supplied photo.

By Wilson J Hormeguera

Governance and Leadership Institute (GLI) director Dr Dixon Yasay of Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan served as one of the resource persons at the recently-concluded Development Legislative Enhancement Course attended by more than 150 local legislators from all over the country.

Yasay facilitated the learning exercises on local development planning and fundamentals of local governance. The session was aimed at equipping the local sanggunian (council) to be more engaging and accountable in crafting the local development plans focusing on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and Comprehensive Development Plan.

He highlighted the poverty incidence of the participating LGUs and challenged the local policymakers to anchor development planning on reducing poverty incidence to align with Philippine Development Plan 2022 which targets a decrease from 21% (2015) to 14% (2022).

The GLI director also said that many local governments have long-term development plans but many of these plans are not executed or implemented. He urged local councilors to take full accountability as local planners in the realm of local legislation considering that planning is a policy-making function.

He furthered that the power of the public purse belongs to the sanggunian, therefore, enacting appropriation ordinance has a direct impact on local planning.

Development Legislative Enhancement Course was organized by the University of the Philippines - Diliman’s Center for Regional and Local Governance.∎