Sen. Tolentino leads oathtaking of more than 2700 newly elected brgy officials in Oriental Mindoro

CALAPAN CITY -- Senator Francis "Tol" Tolentino led on Friday the oathtaking of 2,783 newly elected Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan officials from the first district of Oriental Mindoro.

The newly elected officials came from Calapan City and the towns of Pola, Naujan, Puerto Galera, San Teodoro, Victoria, Baco and Socorro.

Oriental Mindoro Representative Arnan Panaligan and the mayors and vice mayors of the first district also attended the mass oath-taking ceremony held at Balai Mindoro.

During his keynote speech, Sen. Tol underscored the real deal of becoming a barangay official.

"Ang pagiging Kapitan, pagiging SK merong 99 percent na pangangailangan. Di po iyong karangalan, di po iyon titulo, di po iyon allowance, di po iyon pagiging malakas sa inyong mga Mayor," he said.

The Senator likewise reiterated his concern on the insufficient funding for the post-election training of the Local Government Academy (LGA) which has an allocation of P71.535 million for 2024.

In the recently concluded plenary debates on the Budget of Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Tolentino said, "I see the post-election training modules to be given to our newly elected barangay officials as mission-critical. Mission-critical in the sense that they are the ones supposed to implement laws concerning issues."

A staunch advocate of empowering local government units, Tolentino also fought for the postponement of the deadline of filing of Certificates of Candidacy from July 3 to 7, to August 28 to September 2, to avoid burdening the local government units from the election-related prohibitions.

Sen. Tol likewise urged the DILG to give the newly elected officials ample time to transition as they take on their two-year term.