Fuentes said her office received complaints from concerned residents in T'boli that most of the town's 12 barangay chairs have not been reporting regularly for duty in their respective barangays.
"So in effect, no sessions were held making the barangay councils non-functional," the governor said.
Fuentes did not identify the erring barangay officials who have "practically abandoned their posts for many months now."
Fuentes urged the DILG and T'boli Mayor Ernesto Manuel to immediately act on the matter and to impose appropriate sanctions on the delinquent officials.
"This matter should not be taken lightly because some of our barangays are alloted IRAs (Internal Revenue Allotments) of as high as P1 million. The lowest allocation is about P600,000," she said.
Dominador Siloterio, T'boli public information officer, said the local government already received information regarding the problem.
"I'm not quite familiar with this issue but rest assured that the municipal government is already acting on it," he said.
Nelson Baluran, performance monitoring officer-in-charge of DILG Region 12, confirmed that some barangay councils in T'boli were having "some problems" regarding their performance.
He said they recently conducted an inquiry after the provincial government notified them about the matter.
"Some barangay councils have been conducting sessions but they are not done regularly supposedly due to the lack of quorum," he said.
Baluran said they already informed the municipal government of T'boli about their findings and they recommended some disciplinary sanctions against the erring barangay officials.
"The municipal mayor has the authority to impose disciplinary actions on delinquent barangay officials. It would be up to him to determine these sanctions," he added. (Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews)