128 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition Exemplary practices or innovations in several LGUs provide the most impressive indicator of the gains from decentralization. In 1994, more than a year after decentralization was fully implemented, the Galing Pook awards were rst conferred on LGUs that had initiated outstanding or trailblazing innovations in local governance.13 From its formation, the Galing Pook Foundation has given a total of 259 awards to 173 distinct local government units, from the barangay to the 14 provincial level. (See Table 6). A number of LGUs had received the GPF award more than once. In 1996, the GPF decided to create a Hall of Fame roster for those who consistently garnered awards. In this Hall of Fame, LGUs were listed until 2002, namely: Naga City, Puerto Princesa City, Marikina City, San Carlos City (Negros Occidental), the municipality of Irosin, and the provinces of Bulacan, Davao del Norte and Nueva Vizcaya. In 2003, the Hall of Fame had been replaced with the Award for Continuing Excellence with three cities (Naga, Marikina and San Carlos) and four provinces (Bohol, Negros Oriental, Bulacan, and Nueva Vizcaya) in the roster of awardees. Of these 173 LGUs, 10 were barangays, 89 were municipalities, 36 were cities, and 38 were provinces. Table 7 shows the percentage of each level of LGU awardee to the total number of LGUs per level remains low. However, it should be emphasized that Galing Pook receives a thousand applications for the awards each year and this number of applications alone support the view that there is a critical mass of good governance practices.15 Table 6. GalingPook Awardees, Per Category, Level of LGU, 1994-2010