Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte (left), and President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (Facebook, MANILA BULLETIN)




Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte has bared his expectations on Malacañang's plan to issue an executive order (EO) on even greater local autonomy, in line with the Supreme Court's (SC) Mandanas-Garcia ruling on increasing local government units' (LGUs) share from national tax collections. "The government needs to eschew the pitfalls in our flawed 1992 experience in local autonomy and decentralization by providing ample funds to LGUs, and adequate capacity-building programs for provincial, city and municipal executives and their staff," said Villafuerte, a former three-term provincial governor. He said doing so would "spell the seamless takeover by our localities of certain major programs and projects now being handled by the NG (national government)". Villafuerte is hoping that the President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s planned EO entail “a calibrated approach cognizant of the diverse or dissimilar capacities of first- to sixth-class provinces, cities, and municipalities to carry out NG tasks set for delegation to them". He said adequate resources and manpower training for all LGUs are a must, in light of  the disparate absorptive capacities of  provinces, cities and municipalities. He noted that Marcos himself has said that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to full devolution wouldn’t work, “given that not all LGUs are capable of carrying out at the same time the functions that are supposed to be devolved to them under the Local Government Code, and in support of the Mandanas-Garcia ruling". “We are hopeful that President Marcos’ concern about the distinct administrative, fiscal and technical capability of each and every LGU to absorb and carry out public services now handled by the NG would be at front and center of the would-be EO on full devolution of certain powers now wielded by the central government,” Villafuerte said.