On October 27, 2020, the Regional Gender and Development Council (RGADC) XII, in coordination with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) XII and Philippine Commission Women (PCW), conducted the Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines (HGDG) Orientation for RGADC and LGUs in Region XII via Zoom Conference.
A total of One Hundred Fifty-One (151) participants (39 male and 112 female) joined the said meeting, with 44 coming from Regional Line Agencies, 3 from Academic Institutions, one from Civil Society Organizations and 39 from Local Government Institutions.
Director James Arsenio O. Ponce, CESO III, Director IV, Presidential Agrarian Reform Council Secretariat and PCW GAD Resource Pool Batch 1 acted as the main Resource Speaker who talked about Harmonized Gender and Development Guidelines as a Gender Mainstreaming Strategy.
The other Resource Persons were Ms. Elizabeth B. Omas-as, GAD Specialist II, Philippine Commission on Women and Ms. Rommelyn A. Damasco, LGOO V, GAD Provincial Focal, DILG XII Sultan Kudarat who discussed the PCW-NEDA DBM Joint Circular No. 2012-01 re: ‘Guidelines for the Preparation of Annual Gender and Development (GAD) Plans and Budgets and Accomplishment Reports (AR) to Implement the Magna Carta of Women and PCW-DILG-NEDA-DBM Joint Memorandum Circular 2016-01 re: ‘Amendments to PCW-DILG-DBM-NEDA JMC No. 2013-01: Guidelines on the Localization of the Magna Carta of Women”, consecutively.
DILG XII Regional Director Josephine Cabrido-Leysa, CESO III, emphasized in her message that “HDGD is the best strategy we can use to address the long-standing predicament on how to increase GAD budget allocation from the least 5% mandatory requirement to higher or even more”.
She then encouraged every participant to take the cue and learnings from the Resource Persons to ensure that “all government interventions are inclusive and responsive to all concerns of women including the LGBTQIA+ community who are vulnerable to all forms of discriminations and abuses.”
The use of the HGDG tool is to ensure gender responsiveness of the COVID-19 related PPAs in the LGU/ Agency/ Institution reflected in their respective GPBs.
