BONTOC, Mountain Province – Gov. Bonifacio C. Lacwasan underscored the importance of sustaining and even possibly improving the benefits being provided by the provincial government to the thousands of barangay health workers and barangay day care workers for them to cope up with the current standards of living.
Lacwasan, who was instrumental in the grant of annual incentives to the barangay health workers and day care workers over the past several years, pointed out that the said barangay-based workers are the work force of concerned government agencies and the local governments in cascading to the grassroots level the priority programs of the government, especially for the enhancement of basic health services and the provision of quality basic education to the youth.
The provision of annual compensation to the barangay health workers and day care workers in the province’s 145 barangays is an integral part of Lacwasan’s Barangay Muna flagship program which seeks to cascade to the barangays, the smallest political subdivision in the current set up of the bureaucracy, key services that should be felt by the populace.
“We want to continue empowering our barangay-based workers so that they will be aggressive in providing the people in the barangays with the needed services that are supposed to be available to the people, especially from the remote villages, particularly health and education,” Lacwasan stressed.
He added that one of the mens to motivate the barangay-based workers to be active in providing the needed services to the people is for the local government to apportion part of available funds for the payment of whatever will be the allowable honoraria which they could use to help them provide the basic needs of their families who also rely on them for their daily needs.
Aside from providing them with an annual incentive, the provincial government also shoulders the annual gathering of the barangay health workers and day care workers for them to have a chance to share to their collegues best practices in their barangays that could be worthy of emulation so that the delivery of basic services to the people will remain smooth.
Lacwasan also recognized the important contributions of the barangay nutrition scholars (BNS), the barangay nutrition action officers (BNAOs) in the efficient and effective delivery of basic services in the grassroots level so that the people in the villages will be able to feel the presence of government attending to what they need even if they are situated in remote areas of the province.
While it is true that the provincial government has meger resources to provide all the needs of its constituents, Lacwasan claimed that provincial officials are doing their best to maximize the available resources of the local government to cater to the increasing needs of the people in the different communities who rely on the services from the government for them to hurdle the difficulties of life in the countryside.
Lacwasan is aware of the importance of cascading to the barangays key services of the government considering that he was former barangay official having rose from the ranks to become the province’s chief executive mindful of the needs of the people in the countryside aside from those enjoying the availability of basic services in the urban areas.
By HENT