BAGUIO CITY March 20—Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said the ultimate solution to the lack of funds of the city’s 128 barangays to pay for the honorarium of their respective barangay tanods is for the merger of the barangays to comply with the minimum number of inhabitants pursuant to the provisions of the Local government Code of the Philippines.
Domogan said the merger of barangays would contribute in the realization of the increase in the funds of the barangays to cover their expenses, especially for the salaries and allowances of barangay tanods.
He cited as example Irisan, the city’s largest barangay, which, despite its rapidly growing population, has adequate funds to pay for their barangay officials, tanods and other services.
Domogan’s statement came after Councilor Michael Lawana, who is also the president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC), posed a challenge to city officials to help them raise funds to pay the salaries of their barangay tanods after the city council rejected a proposal of the AB to hold a trade fair for two months to raise funds purposely for their tanods.
Earlier, the Commission on Audit (COA) rejected a proposal to use funds for the maintenance and other operations of the barangays to pay the services of the barangay tanods, resulting in the drastic decline of the number of barangay tanods.
From over 1,000 tanods distributed in the city’s 128 barangays, the number declined to only 220 which poses a serious negative effect to the peacekeeping efforts of the barangays.
Under the provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7160 or the Local government code of the Philippines, a barangay must have a minimum of 5,000 inhabitants and that barangay officials must be compensated through the salary grade level pursuant to the levels fixed by law.
“It is high time that our barangay officials consider the long overdue proposal for the merger of the city’s existing barangays. We have to be practical on the matter so that our barangays will be able to achieve their goals and objectives,” Domogan said.
From the previous 128 barangays, proponents of the merger of barangays want the number of barangays in the city should be limited to more or less 50 to 52 barangays.
Domogan said once the merger is in effect, barangay officials will be fully compensated while their workers will be able to receive their proper salaries prescribed under existing rules and regulations and that their honoraria will be upgraded into salaries.
He said it is high time to open the consultations for the proposed merger of barangays in order to allow strategically located barangays that do not meet the minimum population to be lumped together to increase the income and capacity of the barangays to render public service.
During previous administrations, the merger of the city’s barangays had been proposed in the city council but no definite action was taken up to this time.
Domogan appealed to barangay officials to be open-minded about the proposed consultations on the merger of barangays because it will open the floodgates of discussions that will generate recommendations in order to implement the merger which he said would benefit the majority of the populace in the city.
