Cagayan de Oro City Hall’s various departments met with the city’s barangay captains Thursday (Aug. 20) to secure their support for fast tracking the processing of necessary permits for the installation of cell tower sites in the city.

The whole-day meeting held at the City Council session hall was presided by Barangay Gusa captain Marlon Tabac, who is also concurrent vice president of the Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) and participated in by officials of the Office of Community Affairs, the Office of the Building Official and the city office of the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG), among others.

Office of Community Affairs chief Oliver Egypto said a presentation was given by a technical working group explaining the rationale behind the fast-tracking in the approval of requirements for cell site towers. He said this is in compliance with Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act signed by President Rodrigo Duterte last May 2018.

President Duterte also called on the country´s major telecom providers to upgrade their services in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) held last July. In his message, ABC President and Councilor Alam Lim called on fellow barangay captains to support City Hall´s efforts to expedite the processing of requirements of telecom providers from their end.

“Let´s look at how we can offer our service first in heeding President Duterte´s call to improve our telecom services to our people in Cagayan de Oro City which needs 100 cell site towers to expand WiFi coverage to our city residents,” Lim said in Visayan during the meeting.