Anti-insurgency strategy in communities to go nationwide: DILG-7

From the Philippine News Agency (Mar 24, 2022): Anti-insurgency strategy in communities to go nationwide: DILG-7 (By John Rey Saavedra)

ANTI-INSURGENCY STRATEGY. This undated photo shows village folks in Bohol province during one of the "Dagyawan sa Barangay" activities of the Regional Task Forces to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF-ELCAC). The DILG-7 on Thursday (March 24, 2022) said the National Peace and Order Council has recognized the successes of the "Dagyawan sa Barangay", which led to adoption and nationwide holding of similar townhall meetings to bring the government closer to the people in insurgency-affected villages. (Photo courtesy of DILG-7)

The “Dagyawan sa Barangay”, a strategy toward ending communist armed conflict by bringing government services closer to the barrio folks, will now be implemented nationwide, the Department of the Interior and Local Government-Central Visayas (DILG-7) said Thursday.

Lawyer Leocadio Trovela, DILG-7 regional director, said in a statement the strategy conceptualized in Central Visayas as a way to promote “togetherness” in advocating peace and development down to the village level has been recognized by the National Peace and Order Council (NPOC) during its 1st quarter meeting last March 21.

The NPOC issued Resolution No. 7 recognizing the works of the Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF-ELCAC) chaired by Trovela for being able to engage the people in barangays affected by insurgency.

He said the resolution endorses the adoption and nationwide implementation of a series of community town hall forums comparable to the "Dagyawan sa Barangay".

The Dagyawan is the branding of the DILG-7 projects under the Retooled Community Support Program (RCSP) with the primary goal of bringing government services right to the doorstep of villagers, especially in far-flung areas.

True to its promise to bring town hall meetings to the local level, Trovela collaborated with the officials of Negros Oriental province to launch the first Dagwayan sa Barangay in Dumaguete City in August of 2019.

The activity was the localized version of “Dagyaw 2019: Open Government and Participatory Governance Regional Townhall Meeting”, a series of government dialogues with the stakeholders at the grassroots level.

“This platform serves as a venue for an active engagement between the government and the people at the grassroots level. So we can bring the government closer to the minds and hearts of the people in Region 7,” Trovela said.

Apart from dialogues and fora, officials from NTF-ELCAC also conducts the “Serbisyo caravan” (service caravan) that provides various services and assistance to village folks.

Since 2019, DILG-7 has spearheaded conducts of Dagyawan sa Barangay in the insurgency-affected villages through the Basic Services Cluster chaired by the agency, and with the active participation of the provincial government of Negros Oriental and the Negros Oriental Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NOTF-ELCAC) led by Governor Roel Degamo, who is now the Regional Peace and Order (RPOC) chair.

Apart from Dagwayan activities in insurgency-affected villages in Negros Oriental, these townhall-type of listening tool of the government were also conducted in areas in Bohol and Cebu.

Meanwhile, the DILG-7 reported that 515 ELCAC-related projects worth PHP5.4 billion were endorsed to the Regional Development Council (RDC), Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC), Regional Task Force 7-ELCAC, National Task Force-ELCAC, and Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Dagyawan sa Barangay is coined from a Hiligyanon term which means “bayanihan” or togetherness.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1170562