By Leilanie G. Adriano
Staff Reporter
Aiming to be
globally competitive, the Ilocos Norte government is pushing for all
municipalities here to be certified by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO).
On November 5 during a meeting
with the league of municipalities (LMP) here, Sarrat mayor Edito Alberto Balintona
said the LMP fully supports the move for the ISO accreditation.
Initiated by the Ilocos Norte
government under the administration of Ilocos Norte Governor Ma. Imelda “Imee”
R. Marcos, the country’s first local government unit to make all its offices ISO-compliant
on February 1, 2013, it aims to attract more local and foreign investors
here.
“One way of doing so is to
ensure better government services and faster processing of documents by
highly-competitive government workers passing a set of ISO accreditation,” said
Balintona.
Once ISO-certified, Balintona
added investors will be assured of quality services the government can offer to
them based on transparency and efficiency of LGU’s governance.
“The funding needed for ISO
accreditation is not so much of a burden compared to its numerous benefits,”
said Balintona. However, municipal employees particularly those rank and file
need to undergo examination to ensure they are highly competent and deserving
for the job.
The Ilocos Norte government is
also helping out LGU’s in terms of funding for the ISO application through a
sharing scheme. For example, LGUs classified as first class municipalities
shall have 70-30 sharing, third class 60-40 and third class is 50-50 while the
fourth and fifth class municipalities shall have 100 percent financial support
from the provincial government.
The PGIN’s ISO 9001: 2008 seal
was given following an evaluation made by the ISO-certifying auditing team from
TÜV NORD Philippines on the technological document transaction tracking system,
the renovation of government buildings including the provincial jail and other
practices.
The ISO certification process
in the province started last September 25, 2012 when all the provincial office
heads and employees underwent orientation and training under MacroVision
Consultancy, a Philippine-based group offering management systems training
related to ISO.
ISO is an acronym for
“International Organization for Standardization” derived from the Greek word
“isos”, meaning “equal.” It is a body that oversees service procedures and
gives state of the art specifications for products, services and good practice,
helping to make industry more efficient and effective.
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