ILOILO CITY — The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has awarded Iloilo as the best performing provincial government in Western Visayas region.
The provincial government under Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. garnered the Best Performing Province in Western Visayas region during the 2021 Excellence in Local Governance (EXCELL) Awards.
The Iloilo provincial LGU garnered awards in four of the five categories: administrative governance, economic governance, social governance, and environmental governance.
For this year, DILG reviewed the programs of the local government units (LGUs) in responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among its programs was the Reverse Isolation and Contact Tracing Application (RIsC TrAp). This was the idea of Defensor for barangays (villages) to establish and maintain a database of residents as monitor their entry, exit as part of the contact tracing methods.
For social governance, one of the programs was Rehabilitation and Transformation of the Province to Catalyze Recovery (RT-PCR), which ensured access to quality essential health services.
For economic governance, there was the Urban Agriculture Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic. Led by the Iloilo Provincial Agriculture Office, it had a livelihood program for low-income households by helping selling agricultural products.
On environmental governance, there was the “Limpyo Iloilo” program that had a public-private partnership (PPP) for a sustainable environmental cleanup and waste management.