Garcia, Valdecanas lead Barangay Week Program in Ibayo

BALANGA CITY, Bataan – Balanga City Mayor Joet Garcia and Vice Mayor Noel Valdecanas led this morning’s opening ceremony of the week-long Barangay Week Program in Barangay Ibayo, attended by other city officials, barangay officials and residents.

The week-long program will include activities suggested by the barangay officials. “We already changed it, the activities in the barangay week program come from you”, the city mayor told Brgy. Ibayo officials and residents at the barangay covered court. Led by Punong Barangay Hernan Ilaya barangay officials and folks happily participated in the program.  

Garcia started the Barangay Week Program in 2007 aimed at empowering the 25 barangays in this city wherein activities were assigned by the city government.

The program was modified into the Barangay Week Program wherein barangays assign the activities in the entire week-long program. The program was further modified into Learning Barangay Week Program integrating the learning aspect. The idea came up when Garcia attended the International Conference on Learning Cities in Beijing, China last year.

He earlier said that innovative strategies will be adopted to enable local residents to learn new skills and competencies to transform Balanga into a learning city. The city government and the Bataan Peninsula State University had signed a Memorandum of Agreement for the modified Learning Barangay Week Program.