Press Release
May 8, 2017

Senates seeks creation of barangay in Surigao del Sur

The Senate approved today on final reading a bill seeking to create a new barangay in Bislig City, Surigao del Sur.

Senator Sonny Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Government, authored and sponsored House Bill No. 4682, the measure that would call for the creation of "Barangay Cumawas" in Bislig City.

It was Surigao del Sur 2nd District Representative Johnny Ty Pimentel who filed the original bill at the House of Representatives.

According to Angara, Barangay Cumawas was created in November 1996 by virtue of a provincial ordinance separating it from its mother barangay known as Mangagoy. The ordinance was prompted by a plebiscite held on September 1996.

The senator said Section 285 of the Local Government Code clearly stipulates that "the financial requirements of any barangay created after the Code's enactment must be borne by the corresponding city, municipality or province."

For the past two decades, Angara said, Barangay Cumawas got its funds from either Bislig City or the provincial government of Surigao del Sur.

Once the proposed measure is passed into law, Barangay Cumawas would be eligible to receive its own Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) share and shall be empowered to fulfil its mandate of providing services to its constituents.

"When fully empowered, barangays truly become government for and by the Filipino people. That is what makes strengthening them an imperative that we should pursue today," Angara said.

He noted a Supreme Court decision penned in 2004 that cited the role of the barangay "as a basic political unit, the barangay serves as the primary planning and implementing unit of government policies, projects and activities in the community."

"As conceptualized in the Local Government Code, the barangay is positioned to influence and direct the development of the entire country," the decision added.

Camawas lies west of Mangagoy and is home to around 3,500 residents. It shares a shore with Mangagoy and faces Bislig Bay.

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