ZAMBOANGA CITY – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Zamboanga Peninsula Region, awarded a Recognition for Mastery in Quality Management or Level 3 of the Philippine Quality Awards (PQA) during the 24th Assessment Cycle Conferment Ceremony today, is now a proud part of the roster of government and private organizations in the Philippines lauded for performance excellence.

The Philippine Quality Award Program is a global competitiveness template that aims to encourage and engage public and private organizations and other stakeholders to strive for and attain performance excellence. It is a national award program that recognizes achievements of public and private sector organizations in their journey towards performance excellence. It involves a rigorous process of independent review, Initial Consensus Review, Site Visit Review and Final Judges Review.

“DOLE 9’s PQA journey has not been an easy one but with the hard work, determination and commitment to excellence and public service that the men and women of DOLE 9 exemplified despite the backdrop of a pandemic, we were able to pull through and achieve this award,” Regional Director Atty. Roy L. Buenafe proudly shared.

The labor office in Region 9 is the first among all DOLE Regional Offices to achieve the Level 3 award.

“For the first time in PQA History 3 organizations succeeded in receiving the recognition for mastery in quality mgt and it is worth mentioning that this milestone transpired during these extra-ordinary times.

DOLE Region 9 deserves special commendation for receiving level 3 recognition as a 1st time PQA Applicant organization in the 2O21 Assessment Cycle due to its robust management system,” said Mr. Ruy Moreno, President of the Philippine Quality Award Foundation, Inc.,

“This recognition has certainly invigorated the workforce of DOLE 9 – it inspired us to persevere even more in our efforts of embodying quality management and exemplary overall organization performance worth emulating,” said Assistant RD, Imelda F. Gatinao.

The criteria for performance excellence consist of seven categories: Leadership, Strategic Planning; Customer and Citizen Focus; Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management; Human Resource Focus; Operations Focus and Results.

PQA awards four Levels of Recognition;: Level I Recognition for Commitment to Quality Management; Level II: Recognition for Proficiency in Quality Management; Level III Recognition for Mastery in Quality Management; Level IV The Philippine Quality Award for Performance Excellence.

The PQA sets a standard of excellence to help Filipino organizations achieve world-class performance and serves as a “template” for competitiveness based on the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM). It is a national quality award comparable with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) of the US and those in Europe and Asia.

“We are very thankful to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Competitiveness Bureau, the Development Academy of the Philippines, PQA Foundation Inc., the assessors and judges for giving this opportunity to government organizations and motivating the same to aim for global competitiveness,” said Atty. Buenafe. END / Karen Grafia