Banton Romblon—Municipal Inter-Agency Committee Heads, Barangay Officials and workers and community volunteers of DSWD Kalahi CIDSS gathered last June 18, 2018 at the multi-purpose hall of Banton Municipal Hall to conduct the 3rd Municipal Talakayan. The activity aimed to provide feedback to the community on the development interventions and development needs which were addressed and will be addressed by their Local Government Unit of Banton and the other national government agencies. Pressing community needs such as source of livelihood, water system and health and evacuation centers were some of the needs that arose during the activity discussion. Moreover, the municipality has also raised concerns on the data discrepancies which was also addressed at the later part of the activity.
The Municipal Talakayan started at 8:30 am with preliminaries and opening message from Banton’s Vice Mayor, Hon. Loi Fegalan. During the presentation of the data on the first session of Talakayan—the municipal development status, the participants had a discussion on the definition of makeshift houses. The data showed that there are 147 makeshift houses in the town. The people were confused on what a makeshift house is and how come there are many makeshift houses in Banton. The plenary agreed to review the data after the Talakayan to check the actual number of makeshift houses present. The satisfaction rating of the people in terms of poverty reduction, people empowerment, and local governance was also presented in Session one. The ratings were obtained through survey with different people from different sectors in Banton and the results showed that citizens of Banton have an overall Very satisfactory rating in terms of poverty reduction, people empowerment, and local governance.
More so, the second session about the summary of municipal development priorities, interventions, and gaps was presented by Kalahi CIDSS Monitoring and Evaluation Officer III Crisanto Galay Jr. In this session, Mr. Galay discussed the present and future development interventions being addressed by the LGU and other National Government Agencies like the DSWD. The data showed that most of the needs of the communities in Banton are has been addressed like the need for a more accessible water supply. It was followed by the discussion of the third session– municipal development agenda by Engr. Jerry Fadrilan.
After the discussion of the three sessions, the participants were invited over a gallery walk to have a second and closer look at the data presented during the first three sessions. The gallery walk was followed by a Focus Group discussion wherein the participants sat down in three different groups: the MIAC heads, the Barangay Officials and Baragay Sub-Project Management Committee chairpersons, and the Barangay Nutrition Scholars and other citizens living in Banton.
The Municipal Talakayan is an activity of the Local Government Unit in partnership with DSWD Kalahi CIDSS to promote transparency in Local Governance. ###
