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Thursday, March 18, 2004
CH pols don’t spare youth jobs
By GINGGING A. CAMPAÑA
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
PARTY lines have been drawn not only in the distribution of committee chairmanships in the Cebu City Council, basketball goals and boards, gymnasium lighting facilities and self-help projects in various barangays.
Even in accepting summer job applications from indigent students and screening players in ballgame tournaments for City Hall and barangays, politics plays a role.
But what made the City’s Special Program for the Employment of Students (Spes) and the nightly ballgame tournaments different this year is the requirement that the applicant must be a registered voter of Cebu City.
Some students who dropped by the City Hall Media Center yesterday lamented they will not qualify for Spes, as they are not yet 18 and that they could not present a voter’s affidavit, which is the number one requirement for the program.
Another requirement is that the student’s parents must only have an annual income of below P380,000.
Opposition Councilor Eugenio Gabuya said the requirements are apparently aimed at getting sure votes for the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan candidates for the May 10 polls.
Recommendations
Gabuya said that although the four Kugi Uswag Sugbo (Kusug) councilors (including Carmelita Piramide, Danilo Fernan and Dana Ruiz-Sesante) are allowed to recommend 10 indigent students, BO-PK can recommend at least 40 each.
This means that all 14 BO-PK allied councilors, including those who are not seeking reelection and Vicente Kintanar Jr., who recently defected to the administration, are assured of getting the votes of students and their parents, he said.
“That’s only for them. In the past, even those aged 16 can work (under Spes),” Gabuya said.
If the students endorsed by BO-PK will vote for the administration candidates, that means 560 votes for the councilors.
Summer income
This is exclusive of the other students who will be assigned to the urban poor office and those who will be mobilized in Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s community-based anti-drug campaign.
The Spes aims to provide students with an income during summer, which they can use for their enrolment.
City Hall has set aside P12,014,190 for Spes this year and made sure that payment of salaries will be released on time to avoid a similar case last year when their pay was delayed for two months.
Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera had said they will only be hiring enough students so the City will not exceed what has been allocated.
Last year, the City allocated some P11 million for the salaries of 3,000 “deserving underprivileged students” at P200 per day for 20 working days.
Some students were assigned at the Division for Welfare of the Urban Poor and Department of Manpower Development and Placement offices to do field work and surveys. Others were detailed to the Commission on Elections Cebu City office and to the barangays.
(March 18, 2004 issue)
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