OVERVIEW

True to achieving its vision, to be an organization united and committed to genuine end effective local autonomy and development, with democratic access to all available resources, and its mission, to ventilate, articulate and crystallize issues affecting city government administration and secure solutions to these issues through proper and legal means, the League of Cities of the Philippines re-adopted the long-standing 7-Point Action Agenda of the League in the series of Island Cluster Strategic Planning Workshops in August 2004. Five of these action points have direct policy implications that require a strong, unified, decentralized but focused, and highly participatory policy development and advocacy work.

Thus, the creation of the Policy Development and Advocacy Unit in May 2005 to strengthen the League’s efforts to make a strong presence in the arena of crafting and advocating for legislative and executive policies at the national and local levels of government.

The Unit is under the direct supervision of Mayor Mel Senen S. Sarmiento of Calbayog City, with Atty. Edward P. Buenaflor, Executive Assistant to the LCP President, as Head, and Len Espinosa, Nadine S. Siriban, Jaime Paulo B. Mora, Ronald M. Cartagena, Neil G. Ortile and Frances Larla C. Savella as Policy Development and Advocacy Officers, and Veronica Hitosis as Senior Policy Analyst.