bayanihan, participation, and engagement

DAGYAW: an occasion for bayanihan, participation, and engagement

On September 10, 2019, the Dagyaw: Open Government and Participatory Governance Regional Townhall Meeting for Cordillera Administrative Region was conducted at the University of Baguio Gymnasium. It was the fourteenth leg of a series of 16 events across the country which aimed to provide an avenue for productive, valuable, sincere, and visible engagement between government and its people. It also aimed to provide a platform for regular citizens to clarify “issues of the day” and raise local concerns through direct interfacing with senior government officials, to provide a venue for citizens to access a one-stop-shop of frontline government services and national programs down to the region, and to gather stakeholder inputs for the co-creation of the Philippine Open Government Partnership (PHOGP) National Action Plan 2019-2021.

For CAR, the keynote speakers were Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Undersecretary Janet B. Abuel and DILG Secretary Roosque B. Calacat. For the issues closer to home, the speakers were Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-CAR) Assistant Regional Director Augusto D. Lagon for the topic on Environment; Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-CAR) Regional Director Tiburcio L. Canlas for the topic on Build, Build, Build and Department of Tourism (DOT) Assistant Secretary Roberto P. Alabado III for the topic on tourism.

“By interacting with one another, we will have enlightenment, and enlightenment will give understanding, and with better understanding we will have better engagement with one another.”

In the event’s welcoming remarks delivered by DILG-CAR Regional Director Marlo L. Iringan, he mentioned that the activities like town hall meetings and face to face interactions with the people are equally productive and important for the agencies to know the issues and concerns of the constituents in order to improve its services. He also encouraged the participants to actively participate in the discussion and share their issues, concerns, and recommendations to achieve the objective of the activity.

Further, DILG Asec. Calacat shared in his keynote that Dagyaw will not stop at the Regional level. It will go down to the Provincial, Municipal, and down to the Barangay level to continue the sharing of engagement and engaging people together.

May we all embody the spirit of Dagyaw, the spirit of Bayanihan, the spirit of conversation. May this platform inspire us to become partners for change.