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Monday, December 19, 2005
Nalzaro: Del Mar’s media fund now ready
By Bobby Nalzaro
ONE week after I talked about it in this column, Rep. Raul del Mar (Cebu City, north district) fulfilled his promise to allocate funds from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) for the medical and hospitalization needs of local media members.
Del Mar turned over some documents to Sun.Star Cebu editor-in-chief Cheking Seares and asked him to closely coordinate with the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) 7, where the funds will be coursed through.
It was Seares who brought up this idea after a consultation with some media leaders. Beneficiaries of the national legislators’ pork barrel cannot hold the money in cold cash. It will be channeled to a government agency, which will undertake the project after identifying it.
In this case, since the money is intended to help the medical and hospitalization needs of members of Cebu’s fourth estate, it is being coursed through DSWD.
The deputy House speaker for the Visayas told a gathering of few media leaders over the weekend that the proposal was very timely because he still has unused PDAF in 2005 so he won’t have to wait for the release of his 2006 pork barrel.
When asked what prompted him to fully support the project, he said: “It is my concern and recognition to the media profession being a son of a journalist. My father, when he was still alive, provided our needs through his journalism profession.”
His father Jose was a great journalist and edited one of Cebu’s leading newspapers during his time.
The deputy speaker promised to allocate more funds from his yearly PDAF and at the same time called on his Cebuano House colleagues to support the project.
Del Mar also pioneered the free hospitalization program for his district constituents at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, through the Del Mar Medical card, which other Cebuano congressmen adopted.
The Cebu Newspapers Workers Welfare Foundation (Cenewof) will be conduit of the “Cebu Media Fund” project.
Cenewof will formulate the guidelines as to who can avail himself/herself of the program and determine the amount to be extended based on the patient’s ailment. Initially, only news and public affairs personnel of a radio and TV station and reporters, opinion makers and editorial members of a newspaper can avail themselves of the program.
These are the people who are “in line of fire,” as they are in the frontline of getting, writing, reporting and commenting on news stories.
After a formal signing of the memorandum of agreement between del Mar, DSWD and Cenewof, the project should be fully implemented.
(bgnalzaro@gmanetwork.com)
(December 19, 2005 issue)
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