Formation of Professional Teams To Deliver a Package of Services in the Barangays

October 1, 1977

LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS NO. 608

WHEREAS, the New Society has embarked upon a massive program to improve the lives of our people in the barangay and for this purpose has exhorted all sectors in the government to go back to their native roots and render much needed community development service; acd

WHEREAS, we have embarked upon this program because one of the overriding concerns of the New Society is to share the benefits of progress with the great masses of our people by improving the quality of life in the barangay;

WHEREAS, the programs operating under this "Balik-Barangay" concept have generated enthusiastic response and willing cooperation from all sectors;

WHEREAS, the rural folks have welcomed the assistance and even now joining hands with the government workers in the realization of programs that will ultimately redound to the benefit of all;

WHEREAS, these efforts, no matter how willingly and wholeheartedly given, are still inadequate to solve the problems present in our rural communities;

WHEREAS, what is needed is the active involvement of all sectors of society, especially those with special expertise and knowledge to share or bestow; cdt

WHEREAS, our professionals have demonstrated their sense of voluntarism and kinship with those in the barangay when under the voluntarism program of the government these professionals rendered free professional service to our people in the rural areas;

WHEREAS, the time is believed propitious for them to join cause with the government in this effort by forming themselves into professional teams to deliver a package of services to our people in the barangays;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby:

1. Order the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission to encourage professionals, through the Professional Regulation Commission and the different professional associations, to organize themselves into teams which shall fan out to the barangays and render professional services to our people for a period of at least 15 days a year;

2. Suggest to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that he shall likewise encourage lawyers, through the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, to return to their barangays to render professional assistance to people by way of legal advice, preferably by joining teams of other professionals on rural work. acd

DONE in the City of Manila, this 1st day of October, in the year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Seven.