The Provincial Government of the 4 provinces of Region 7 invited the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA VII) as a resource speaker to the two-day provincial workshop on the Localization of the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) CY 2017-2022 Result Matrices and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Tagging.

The workshop aimed to formulate Cities/Municipalities commitment and result matrices reflective and/or consistent with the targeted outcomes that will be aligned to the Regional/Provincial and the PDP. In consideration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Local Government Units (LGUs) must ensure its tagging through its Local Development Investment Programs (LDIPs).

The invited participants per LGU includes the City/Municipal Mayors or their representatives, chairpersons of the committee on appropriations of the Sanggunian, Local Planning and Development Coordinators and City/Municipal Local Government Operations Officer (C/MLGOOs).

The activity presented the validated provincial results matrices that contain the provincial indicators and targets which are anchored from the regional results matrices. These matrices provide a mechanism and/or basis for assessing the contributions of each local government unit in the attainment of PDP 2017-2022. Moreover, the activity was intended to secure commitments from the city and municipalities of the province on their contributions to the attainment/realization of the provincial targets.

The workshop was also aimed to present the efforts on the Localization of the SDG indicators for monitoring, highlighting the indicators with provincial disaggregation as well as the Core Regional Indicator System (Co-Re IS). The former also provide guidance in the determination of applicable indicators in the RDP Matrices (RMs) for inclusion in the PDP Matrices (PMs) and identification of Co-Re IS and other applicable indicators that are aligned with the PDP/RDP chapters/outcomes and SDGs.

The PSA resource speakers also reminded the local officials and its representatives about the submission of their SDG Data Assessment Matrix based on the local level monitoring and identify which indicators are currently being monitored and how these indicators were used as well as to its intended uses. The matrix was being accomplished and agreed for submission during the SDG Seminar 1 spearheaded by the Philippine Statistical and Research Institute (PSRTI) conducted on 19 July 2018 in Cebu City.

All 129 C/MLGUs in the provinces of Region VII were well-represented during the workshop. The resource speakers were Ms. Maria Melisa Guantero, Carlo Gabriel Simbajon and Cornelio B. Guantero, Jr of NEDA VII; Engr. Leopoldo Alfanta Jr and Engr. Felixberto Sato Jr of PSA VII; and LGOO V Jerson Obo of DILG VII. It is planned that after the national election this May 2019, another workshop will be conducted at the city/municipal level where the RMs and the SDG tagging will now be aligned with the provincial RMs down to the barangay level.

The two-day provincial workshop in each province was conducted in different venues and schedules as follows:

CSS Alfanta discussed about the efforts on the Localization of the SDG indicators for monitoring, highlighting the indicators with provincial disaggregation as well as the Co-Re IS. Likewise, SrSS Sato discussed intensively the sixty-four SDG indicators with provincial disaggregation and the guidelines in mapping SDG indicators to the RDP RMs of Region 7. He emphasized that in identifying indicators it should have a readily available provincial data and if possible, data source of the indicators will be coming from the official data source.