By Liezel Mee S. Comision and Leah Mae Daguwaas, contributors
MALAYBALAY CITY (25 January 2025/Bukidnon News)– The City’s Indigenous People Mandatory Representatives have been getting a legislative skills boost, resulting in an increased approval on proposed ordinances.
This is thanks to an extension project of the Bukidnon State University’s College of Public Administration and Governance, which was supported by the City Government, through the Office of the City IPMR, and the Liga ng mga Barangay.
Mark Lyster Semortin, CPAG faculty member and the acting project leader, said the 46 Barangay IPMRs are especially trained in preparing ordinances and resolutions. Based on an ongoing impact assessment, majority of them showed improved skills.
“This is the essence of the project…” he said. “Towards the end…it is expected that [they will step up] from zero formulated ordinances…because this is their mandate.”
Semortin cited the Brgy Imbayao representative who passed the declaration of a barangay “IP Day” in October, the National Indigenous Peoples Month. Through the ordinance, they were able to allocate a portion of their barangay fund for IP activities.
He could not yet give the total number of ordinances passed as their terminal report will cover three years.
“Capacitating the Indigenous People’s Mandatory Representatives (IPMR) of Malaybalay City” is a comprehensive training and capacity-building program. It includes parliamentary procedure training to boost the legislators’ skills in the Sangguniang Barangay.
It also covers the basics of the Sangguniang Barangay with lectures on internal rules of procedure, dynamics of council meetings, and handling or raising a motion during sessions.
Semortin said they introduced innovative approaches including use of technologies to aid their work, such as using Google forms and Google drive, among others.
He also noted that the IPMRs gave positive feedback in the training evaluations. The most recent leg of trainings were held on November 20 and December 11, 2024.
The project was started in 2017, which ran up to 2019 until it was interrupted by the Covid-10 pandemic. It was revived in August 2021 with a Memorandum of Agreement with the Office of the City IPMR Datu Makayuba Renato Sumbongan for recently selected IPMRs.
Semortin said they hoped that the learning gained will not end with them: “Hopefully, they will cascade it to their communities.” (BukidnonNews.Net)
The writers are 1st year BS Development Communication students of Bukidnon State University. The story is edited from their submission for the Balitang RDE (Research-Development-Extension), a laboratory publication of the DC 102A (Introduction to Media Writing) class in coordination with the university’s Research Development and Extension and Community Services units.