The campaign of the provincial government leading to a zero open defecation status in 2022 is vying for the Galing Pook Award for 2023, which is conferred on the Best Local Governance Program in the country.

“We presented our community-based zero open defecation program as an entry to Galing Pook,” Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. said in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon as he confirmed that the province’s entry – Mobilizing Communities through People-Centered Zero Open Defecation (ZOD) Movement towards a Sustainable Sanitation in the Province of Iloilo – has entered the semi-final round.

Defensor said the ZOD is important because it is a fundamental health project.

He said health is significant to human resources, which in turn has a major role in the “Movement for a Robust, Progressive and Globally Competitive and Resilient Province of Iloilo,” a “whole-of-province” approach for development.

“The zero open defecation program strikes at the very heart of that concern. That is why it is very important to us,” the governor added.

The ZOD program has two components: the behavioral adjustment and the capital interventions of the province.

In the capital intervention, the province provided an annual budget of PHP5 million to purchase toilet bowls, cement, and pipes given to target recipients whose counterpart is the labor component.

The provincial government also made sure that there was a water system in waterless areas.

“The important thing about that is the institutional collaboration, together with municipalities and barangays on effective three levels of interventions, including motivation, we can have training and education, and capital,” he said.

The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) first introduced ZOD to the province after the onslaught of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

Barangay Bariga, in the municipality of Banate, was the first village out of the province’s 1,721 barangays to achieve a ZOD status in 2015.

The municipality of San Enrique was the last town to clinch the ZOD status upon verification of the compliance of its 28 barangays last year.

Iloilo province was conferred with the ZOD Grade 1 status on Nov. 18, 2022.

It was the first province in Western Visayas and the third in the country to be conferred the ZOD seal.

Jose Rene Gayo, Miguel Rene Dominguez and Adonis Caballero were in the team of Galing Pook validators who conducted the validation on Wednesday. (PNA)