ORIENTATION. The Department of the Interior and Local Government holds a regional virtual orientation on the operational guidelines of the Quality Assessment Tool on Jan. 19, 2022 in Iloilo City as the department gears to evaluate the Devolution Transition Plan (DTP) of local government units. The DTP is the main tool of LGUs to operationalize the transition to full devolution covering the 2022-2024 period.(PNA photo courtesy of DILG Western Visayas FB page) ILOILO CITY - The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Western Visayas (Region 6) is now in the process of conducting a quality assessment of Devolution Transition Plans (DTP) of local government units (LGUs) in the region. The DTP is the main tool of LGUs to carry out the transition to full devolution covering the 2022-2024 period with the implementation of the Garcia-Mandanas Supreme Court ruling this year, said Christian M. Nagaynay, OIC Division Chief of the Local Government Capability Development Division (LGCDD) of DILG R6, in an interview Wednesday. On June 10, 2019, the Supreme Court affirmed with finality its Mandanas-Garcia ruling on the just share of local government units on internal revenue allotment. Nagaynay said that under the new scheme of fund allotment known as National Tax Allocation (NTA), the share of LGUs increased from 15 to 30 percent on average. "Unlike any other assessment this is not meant to identify which of these DTPs are of failure, or are not implementable but more of improving the DTPs that they have right now. The value of the DTP is within the LGUs consumption, so it will serve as their strategic direction, especially now that we are going to have a transition after May 2022," he added. The DTPs contain the inventory of basic services and functions currently being implemented by LGUs as mandated in the Local Government Code (LGC) and other succeeding laws and those that should have been made available but were not rendered, specific timeline as to its implementation, and capacity development agenda. "They are also mandated to do their revenue projection or forecasting because this year they have seen the increase in their NTA because the baseline of the computation was 2019, so normal time when business was usual and income collection grew, hence the allocation is high," he said. Nagaynay said that LGUs should anticipate a decreasing allocation from 2023 to 2024 since the baseline year of the computation of their NTA would be 2020 when businesses closed, and revenue generation was quite minimal. As preparation, they should have a revenue mobilization and generation projection. The DTP will also form part of the inputs that they'll have to bring with the new administration or with the continuance of the existing or the present administration, he said. The assessment will cover the region's 4,050 barangays, 117 municipalities and component cities, six provinces, and two highly urbanized cities (HUCs). "In terms of compliance we are good here at the region although there are others that have not submitted due to Typhoon Odette," he added. Partly a factor to the delay in the submission of DTPs was the health pandemic since it affected the devolution transition committees from convening, Nagaynay said. The DILG hoped to finish the assessment on Feb.11, 2022 although they might have to reconsider because of the current situation on the surge of cases in the region, he added. He said that once completed they will move to analytics to define the stream of support interventions that will be provided by the national government agencies. (PNA) }