The Civil Service Commission last week urged government agencies in the province, including local provide better services to its clients.

Speaking during the unveiling of the Citizens Satisfaction Center Seal of Excellence Award at the SSS branch office at P. Araojo building in Cavinitan last Sept. 27, CSC provincial field office Director Ma. Guia Garcia said many government offices on the island got high ratings in the initial validation of their respective Report Card Survey results, but failed in second phase validation due to adverse comments from clients.

“We have to better ourselves and give justice to our being public servants,” Garcia told an audience composed mostly of government officials and workers.

She disclosed that SSS Virac, headed by branch head Divina Avila, garnered 90.94 percent in the RCS last year and gained a much higher rating of 92.40% in the second phase validation in February 2012, evidence that the office continued providing excellent services to its clients through quality of service, timeliness, courtesy, competence, compliance with Anti-Red Tape Act and satisfactory working conditions.

Garcia noted that in 2009 and 2010, SSS failed to win the seal because its second floor location in its former office at the JMA building inconvenienced its elderly and other clients.

The second in Bicol and 24th government office in the entire country to earn the seal, SSS Virac is the first in the island province of Catanduanes to achieve the milestone. The award was formally conferred last Aug. 15 in Legaspi City by no less than CSC Chairman Francisco Duque III, who also turned over a P75,000 reward to SSS Catanduanes to be used for the purchase of equipment and other materials as well as services that will improve the delivery of its frontline services.

Rustom Perez of the Pinoy Lingao Damayan Credit Cooperative (PLDC) lauded SSS for its very accommodating personnel and the management’s positive responses to client requests. PLDC has a pending application to serve as a “Bayad Center” of SSS through which the co-op’s members and other SSS members could remit their social security premiums.

Retiree Efren Sorra expressed pride and joy in SSS’s achievement, noting that what one encounters upon entering the office: a courteous guard and the employees’ business-like service with a smile even when he was angry with the delay in the release of his loan check. Happily recalling that his wedding was financed by loans he and wife Sonia secured from the agency, Efren said he was glad he continued his SSS membership.

In response, the SSS Catanduanes branch thanked its clients and other stakeholders and vowed to heighten efforts in delivering services to the public. Accommodating an average of 200 clients daily, it serves a total of 26,910 SSS members on the island, broken down into 16,823 self-employed, 4,277 farmers and fishermen, and 5,810 employees working for 2,050 registered employers.