Thursday, February 01, 2007 Gwen ‘respects’ PB stand SK official
THE Cebu Provincial Board’s (PB) stand on the issue of morality on an unmarried youth leader’s pregnancy may have evoked adverse reactions from the public, but Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia said she respects the PB’s opinion.
The regional director of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) also said the agency could not rule on the matter.
Garcia, in a press conference yesterday, said the PB resolution expressing opinion on the issue may not even reach her office.
“It’s a sentiment expressed by the PB and I respect their position,” she said.
DILG 7 Director Pedro Noval, in an interview with radio dyLA, said the DILG will not be the judge on the situation of Consolacion’s Sangguniang Kabataan president.
The Office of the Ombudsman is the appropriate agency to rule on it, Noval said.
Board Member Joven Mondigo, who presided over last Monday’s session when the resolution was passed, recognized that the PB’s expression of sentiment is now the subject of adverse public opinion.
But he said the PB will respect whatever will be the decision of the SK Provincial Federation, which is investigating the matter.
SK President Ramon Martin Calderon, in last Monday’s committee report, said that the PB has no jurisdiction over the issue because it is an internal matter.
The board members adopted his report, but told the SK president that a person’s decision not to marry is not immoral. What would be immoral, they said, is to force people to marry.
Besides, they said, the youth leader is no longer underage and it was she who made the decision not to marry. (JPM)
