The Parañaque City government is one of the recipients of the Seal of Child Friendly Local Governance Award in Metro Manila for 2018.
Given this month, the award marked the city’s fifth time to be recognized as a child-friendly city by the Regional Committee for the Welfare of Children-National Capital Region.
It is conferred by the Council for the Welfare of Children chaired by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of the Interior and Local Government as partners.
The award is based on the results of the mandatory Child-Friendly Local Governance Audit, which is conducted annually and covers all cities and municipalities throughout the country.
Paranaque public information office chief Mar Jimenez said the rating for last year’s performance was 95 percent, the same as the cities of Mandaluyong and Makati.
Quezon City and Pasay City topped the ratings last year with 100 percent each.
The program audit is designed to enhance the delivery of social services for children as the government aims for Child-Friendly Philippines.
It consists of 12-point indicators to assess the overall performance of local government units.
Top indicators include reduction in deaths among under five-year-old children; reduction in children under six years old with below normal weights; percentage increase in day care/early learning center attendance (public and private); and completion rate for elementary schooling (public and private).
Earlier, Parañaque was recognized by the DILG as the most compliant local government in Metro Manila for passing four of seven local governance assessment areas for the year 2018.
The city was also tagged as one of the Most Compliant LGUs in the implementation of the Supreme Court continuing mandamus for the clean-up and preservation of Manila Bay.
DILG Assistant Secretary for Local Government Marivel Sacendoncillo said Paranaque, under the leadership of Mayor Edwin Olivarez, excellently passed the Environmental Management, Financial Administration, Business-Friendliness and Competitiveness, and Culture and the Arts assessments.
“Paranaque, a highly urbanized city in the southern part of Metro Manila, exhibited excellence in meeting performance benchmarks in four of seven core areas last year,” Sacendoncillo said.
Under the Olivarez administration’s Business One-Stop Shop program, the City’s Business Permit and Licensing Office fast-tracked its government-to-business transactions through the adoption of electronic queuing, document tracking, online payment and No Noon Break policy.
With such a system, what used to be a 15-step process in applying for permits and licenses has been reduced to a simple three-step process of application, assessment, and payment.
As a result of faster, more efficient business processes, the city topped the Civil Service Commission’s list of most compliant cities and municipalities in terms of eliminating red tape and corruption.
Based on the commission’s evaluation, Parañaque received an overall score of 92.7 percent, which is equivalent to Excellent, and tops other major Metro Manila cities like Manila, Quezon City, Makati, Pasig, and Taguig.
