The city government of Manila on Friday formed a special team to attend to all the concerns of the city’s 896 barangays.
Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada directed the Manila Barangay Bureau (MBB) to create a one-stop shop to “receive, answer, process and follow-up on the complaints, requests for assistance and queries of barangay officials.”
“Excessive red tape has no place in our administration; that is a disservice to our beloved Manileños,” Estrada said.
He said the MBB was created because he could not immediately act on the concerns of two million residents.
The bureau links the Office of the Mayor to the barangays and implements policies, issuances, programs, projects, laws and ordinances that may affect communities.
Arsenic Lacson, the officer-in-charge of the MBB, said he is now setting up the barangay one-stop shop.
“It will deal with funding requests, appeals for assistance such as road repairs, garbage collection, conduct of social services to the communities, complaints, inquiries, everything,” Lacson explained.
Under the present system, barangay chairmen bring their concerns to the appropriate department or office and wait until they are acted upon.
“The one-stop shop will receive all official correspondence, forward it to the concerned offices, and get updates,” Lacson said.
“The barangay chiefs will just wait for our call,” he added.