BAGUIO CITY – The chairman of the City Council Committee on Laws, Justice and Human Rights is proposing for the creation of an oversight committee that will monitor and evaluate the implementation of approved city ordinances and resolutions.
Councilor Faustino A. Olowan, committee chairman, reported that the previous and present members of the local legislative body passed numerous ordinances and resolutions but a good number of them are not actually being enforced by the different offices of the local government.
“We must come up with an effective and efficient tracking system to ascertain whether or not our approved ordinances and resolutions are really being enforced for us to be guided on what options to take once the evaluation of the measures will turn out to be ineffective in addressing our priority problems,” Councilor Olowan stressed.
The local legislator pointed out that while it is true that resolutions are mere expression of the collective sentiment of the local government on certain issues and concerns, there should also be an established tracking system to show what actions were taken by concerned government agencies, local government offices, among others, on the approved resolution that was forwarded to the said offices for their information, guidance, further needed action, and ready reference.
According to him, it is unfortunate that the local legislative body was able to enact ordinances and resolutions as far back as the early 1930s, but most of them have become outdated, thus, the need for the local legislative body to update the same measures to conform with the trend of the times and to make sure that the designated offices will strictly implement the same considering that it will be the people of the city that stand to benefit from the compliance of the agencies and offices to the ordinances and resolutions.
Olowan suggested that there should be a periodic report on the tracking of the implementation of ordinances and resolutions so that the local legislative body can come out with an appropriate action on whether or not to repeal or amend the said measures that will guarantee their implementation by the offices of the local government.
Olowan is a 5-term member of the local legislative body, completing his 3 terms as a local legislator from 1998 to 2007 before he was again elected as a city councillor in 2013 up to the present.
He also called on the different sectors of the city to bring to the attention of the local legislative body their suggestions and recommendations on the implementation of existing ordinances and resolutions and their recommended measures that must be enacted that will be beneficial to the people of the city.
The alderman said the participation of the different sectors in the city in the legislation process is important because it is from the grassroots level that issues crop up which must be given due action by the concerned government agencies and the local government which are supposed to be the ones that provide the said services to the people.
By Dexter A. See