The city of Olongapo topped the recently concluded search for the 2009 Child Friendly Cities and municipalities.

Olongapo won the search in the highly urbanized city category, regional level.

The annual search for child-friendly cities and municipalities started in 1998  which aims to institutionalize a child-friendly environment and government towards promoting protecting a child’s survival, development, and participation in the community.

“Simula 2001 sunud-sunod na ang panalo ng Lungsod ng Olongapo sa contest na ito, ito’y patunay lamang na epektibo ang ating programa tungo sa maayos na pag-aaruga sa mga kabataan ng  lungsod. Ipagpapatuloy natin ang mga programang nasimulan upang higit na magabayan ang mga kabataang ito,” Mayor James Gordon, Jr. said.

The search was formulated to encourage cities and municipalities to prioritize, address issues and concerns affecting the rights of children and to monitor the implementation of such programs of LGU’s.

The city also boost several award that the city received in the past years such as the Best City Disaster Coordinating Council Award;  Regional and National Gawad Kalasag Award for 2006 and 2007; Lupon Tagapamayapa incentive awards for highly-urbanized city cluster; Lupon Tagapamayapa national awardee, Barangay Baretto and Regional Awardee for the Child Friendly City, highly-urbanized category for 2006.

Among those who validated the city were from the DSWD, Department of Health (DOH), Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Justice (DOJ), Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Philippine National Police (PNP), Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) National Economic and Development (Neda), Philippine Information Agency (PIA), National Statistics Office (NSO), Tatag, Preda, National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).