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Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) affects not only a person's physiological but also his/her psychological well-being. Unfortunately, the effect is not only among those who are affected by the virus but also those who are not. A number of studies and literatures point out that with the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems increased. The lockdowns and even just the fear of getting infected of the virus were seen to be much higher than in normal times. A ccording to “Suicide Ideation and Attempts in a Pediatric Emergency Department Before and During COVID-19”,  the rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were higher during the pandemic compared to 2019" among Texan youth aging 11 to 21. The increase is due to stressors such as stay-at-home orders and school closures. In the Philippines, one of the local government units (LGUs) that took seriously the effect of COVID-19 to a person's mental health is the City of Mati in Mindanao. The city government created a Tel...

The COVID-19 vaccination program of the Philippine government is being met with distrust and high hesitancy rate. This is primarily due to the Dengvaxia scare; fear of vaccine efficacy particularly of Sinovac Biontech's Coronavac; the national government's problematic communications plan and execution; and, the hesitancy of national government officials to be vaccinated in public thereby instilling more fear and distrust among the population. To help address the issues of hesitancy and distrust on vaccines, the Provincial Information Office of the Province of Northern Samar created a video with Dr. Rommel C. Francisco, the Provincial Health Officer explaining what the COVID-19 vaccine is all about and the order of prioritization for inoculation. The video is being circulated in social media and uses Waray, the mother tongue of the people of Northern Samar, so that even the ordinary people will understand. Watch the video below.  Source: Northern Samar Provincial Information Off...

Tired of filling-up contact tracing forms when traveling from one place to another? Fret no more as the cities of Pasig, Valenzuela, Antipolo and Mandaluyong signed the Contact Tracing Network Consortium Agreement that will interlink their contact tracing systems. The Agreement was signed by Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto, Valenzela Mayor Rex Gatchalian, Antipolo Mayor Andrea Ynares and Mandaluyong Mayor Menchie Abalos. It stipulates, among others, that starting March 1,  any QR code   from   PasigPass, ValTrace, Antipolo Bantay COVID-19 and MandaTrack can now be used in the four cities thus eradicating the hassle of filling-up contact tracing forms when their respective residents visit the other cities included in the consortium. LOOK: Mandaluyong City’s contract tracing app can now be used in Pasig, Valenzuela and Antipolo starting this March after the four local governments signed an integrated agreement. | 📷 Vico Sotto pic.twitter.com/gm0QRU9u2n — Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet...

On February 18, 2021 at 4PM Philippine Standard Time, Galing Pook Foundation, the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Local Government Academy will launch the 2021 Galing Pook Awards. The Awards, which started  on October 21, 1993, is a pioneering program that searches for and recognizes innovative practices by local government units. Since then, at least 300 programs from more than 200 LGUs or local government alliances have been given recognition for the initiatives that produce positive results and impact, promotes people’s participation and empowerment, and showcases innovation, transferability and sustainability, and efficiency. Beyond the awards, winning programs became models of good governance promoted for adoption in other communities. They provided useful insights and strategies to find innovative solutions to common problems. More importantly, they affirmed the community and the local government’s commitment to good governance. For local governme...

One of the most prestigious awards in local governance is the Galing Pook Awards. Held annually except during election years (and last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic), the Awards is given to ten outstanding programs implemented by local government units in the country. For 2021, the Awards will be launched on February 18 at 4:00 in the afternoon and streamed live via the Galing Pook Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/galingpook). The theme for this year's Awards is  "GobyerNEW: Magagaling na Programa mula sa Magagaling na Pook".programs that exemplified adaptiveness, innovation, resiliency, and excellence during these difficult times. If your local government unit has  programs that exemplified adaptiveness, innovation, resiliency, and excellence during these difficult times , encourage your local officials to join. To understand more about the Awards, let us see each other during the launch.

 While the national government is struggling to procure COVID-19 vaccines, at least 25 local government units have inked deals with the United Kingdom's Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine. 14 of the LGUs are from the National Capital Region, three are from the Ilocos Region, one each from the Cordillera Administrative Region and CALABARZON; and three each from Visayas and Mindanao. The Astrazeneca vaccine is the second COVID-19 vaccine that the Philippine government has given emergency use authorization. The first is the  Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Is your LGU included in the list? Check the table below.

 Traveling? Not all destinations are equal, to paraphrase a saying. That includes  the COVID-19-related requirements of your destinations. Before you pack your things, check out what you need to bring.

Adversity reveals genius. So an adage says. True enough, the Coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic has brought the Philippines one of the most popular and even well-oved mayor -- Vico Sotto. Mayor Vico was recognized when he implemented out of the box initiatives to address the issues brought about by COVID-19. Often, he earns the ire of the officials in the national government not because he was wrong but because he is the first, if not among the first, to show that a simple solution actually works.  In this video, Mayor Vico and Pasig City shares one of the best decisions they made -- transforming the Pasig City Children's Hospital into a COVID-19 facility and beef up the local health system to increase efficiency, reduce risk of contamination between COVID and non-COVID cases, and control, if not reduce the number of positive cases. Because of its experience, the city government is now panning to operate the hospital as a specialty hospital for infectious diseases -- a facilit...

Republic Act 7160 otherwise known as the Local Government Code of the Philippines was once considered as the most advanced in Southeast Asia. But when theory meets reality especially in responding to pandemics like COVID-19, that is where everything becomes interesting.  In 2014, Doc. Eddie Dorotan and I co-wrote the book, "Issues and Critical Actions in Local Governance". The book was made possible with the support of the Galing Pook Foundation, Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. In sum, the book presents the  opportunities and major changes the Code introduced in the sub-national governance as well as itemize the issues and challenges being encountered by the local government officials in the pursuit of their functions. The Code is supposed to be automatically reviewed and amended. However, because of interest incompatibilities among legislators and other stakeholders, nothing happened. True, reviews were conducte...

No one has ever found a cure yet to t he Coronavirus disease (COVID)19. The only possible ways to mitigate its effect are to avoid it using the approved health protocols, control its spread by identifying those who are infected, and tracing those who have contacts with the infected to isolate as well as treat them. The City of Ilagan in Isabela implemented programs that integrates these. Not only that, they also tried to automate contact tracing by developing an app that can be used even by less techy individuals. The app. called HealthGuard, was developed in partnership with Isabela State University. It is basically a contact tracing app that could give data and information to aid evidence-based decision-making. Do you also have a similar contact tracing system in your LGU? Feel free to leave a comment below.

  Gravel and Sand Quarrying in Albay The Municipality of Guinobatan, in Albay, is one of those that suffered heavily from Typhoon Rolly. Its losses include five persons dead and two more missing, and millions of pesos worth of destroyed houses, public infrastructure and agriculture. The cause: The quarrying at the foot of Mt. Mayon that flooded the barangays close to the volcano with sand, boulders and volcanic debris. Allegedly, the quarried materials were left in the riverbeds that when Typhoon Rolly arrived, the water pushed the materials along with boulders and rocks down to the residential and agricultural areas.  Investigation on this claim is still on-going and quarrying activities have been suspended already. Even then, the question lingers: Just how lucrative is the quarrying of sand and gravel along Mt. Mayon that even Albay’s provincial governor is allegedly engaged in it? According to the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), quarrying of sand and gravel at the ...

In the Philippines, the bigger part of the burden in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic was given to the local government units (LGUs). Unfortunately, these LGUs are not prepared -- not just because COVID-19 is new but primarily because the current structures and systems are not really designed to make LGU work easier. These include, among others, the unequal distribution of resources, and the level and architecture of devolution. Some local governments, however, are able to adapt and develop innovations for their constituencies without breaking any law. Galing Pook Foundation (GPF) was able to document around 600 of these innovations from different LGUs nationwide and gave awards and recognition to a number of them. From award-winning innovations, Galing Pook developed the Adaptive and Innovative Leadership Course to hone the leadership skills and adaptive capacities of local leaders from both the public and private sector regardless of the situation. The course is timely that the ...

 In the previous post, we presented two of the major health-related functions of local government units under the COVID-19 pandemic, namely the identification of infected individuals, and the prevention of the spread of the virus. All LGUs in the country are, in one way or another, implementing these only that some are innovative enough than the others. 3. Referral and self-hep systems . Once the individuals suspected with Covid-19 virus are identified, they are automatically isolated and tested. If the result comes out positive, they are referred to medical institutions that can treat patients with the virus. Some LGUs, mostly cities, operate their own hospitals while the others rely mainly on arrangements between the local government and the nearest tertiary hospital in the area. In almost all cases though, especially when contact tracing is not fully functional, sick patients or those who experience COVID-19 symptoms but would like to be certain, would just the nearest hospital....

When the Philippine government took Coronavirus disease (COVID) -19 as a real threat, among the first few directives of President Rodrigo Duterte is to mandate the local government units (LGUs) to take charge. So, apart from ensuring the social and economic aspects of the pandemic, local government units are also in-charged with health-related functions.  The President's mandate is just consistent with the Local Government Code particularly the devolution of some government's tasks and functions. Unfortunately, while these tasks and functions are real, the resources necessary remains largely in the national government. Even then, there are LGUs that are innovative enough to perform what is expected of them.  The primary health-related tasks under the COVID-19 pandemic and the LGU performers are as follows: 1. Prevention of the spread of Coronavirus. There is no vaccine against COVID-19 yet so prevention of its spread is dependent on everyone's cooperation particularly in ma...

One of the problems highlighted, if not created, by the Coronavirus disease (COVID) -19 pandemic is food insecurity or the lack of access to a sufficient, affordable and nutritious food. The pandemic disrupted the economy and caused unemployment which in turn affected the purchasing power of the people. Further, the community quarantines also affected the transportation systems that the delivery of food supplies from the farms to the consumers were cut or, if not, diverted to areas where local governments are not strict.  COVID-19 has no vaccine yet and as such, it is expected that the virus will still be around for some time and that community quarantines and lockdowns might be implemented from time to time. As such, there are some sectors in the country as well as local government units that tried to adapt to the situation and innovate ways to ensure that food reaches the table.  Below are some of these innovations. 1. Distribution of food relief packs. This had been the co...

One of the governments with the most interesting way of handling the Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic is the Philippines. While the world was already showing concern over the virus, the Philippines is still permitting flights from places like China noted to be the Ground Zero of the virus. When the number of cases started to multiply, it was only then that the government acted. By March 2020, travel bans were imposed and this was eventually followed by the lockdown couched as "community quarantine".  So, what makes the Phillipine Covid response interesting? What are the characteristics of the Duterte Administration's efforts in responding to the current pandemic?  1. Covid-response delegated to local government units (LGUs).  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is an advocate of decentralization and local government empowerment. For this reason, he placed the burden of the Covid-19 pandemic is  to the shoulders of LGUs -- from the control of borders to contai...