Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Mock session changes student’s view of gov’t
FIFTEEN-year-old Ange-lie Mirafuentes used to think of government service as a corrupt profession. But after her short stint as Cebu City “vice mayor,” she dreams of becoming a public servant someday.
Mirafuentes is just one of some 40 high school students who participated in the Know Your City Government Month and learned about local governance.
Yesterday, the eloquent student body president of the Abellana National School (ANS) led other student leaders in tackling resolutions during a mock City Council session.
She was able to practice the parliamentary skills she learned as head of the ANS parliamentary team as they took up one resolution after the other.
Representatives
Aside from the 18 councilors from the north and south districts and the ex-officio members of the council, the mayor and all department heads of City Hall were represented by their student-counterparts yesterday.
They visited all the offices at City Hall, and learned how to craft resolutions and ordinances and the procedures on their deliberation during the session.
“I enjoyed the activities very much because they have opened my mind to a lot of things. For one, the exposure allowed me to change my perception of the City Government. I used to think it’s all corruption here, but now I realize the City Council is a body of great minds and great people,” Mirafuentes told Sun.Star Cebu.
She said that the experience inspired her more to become a public servant someday, “but perhaps vice mayor is too high a position for me.”
Resolutions
Their resolutions tackled different issues, ranging from education concerns, youth development, a declaration of a state of calamity, the holding of a tree planting activity and seminars for public school students on enhancing their skills and talents.
Perhaps reflective of the youth’s concerns these days, the council also passed a resolution requesting the City Health Department to conduct seminars on how to prevent teenage pregnancy in all the high schools in the city.
Culmination
Yesterday’s session was the culmination of the Know Your City Government Month program of the Cebu City Youth Development Council.
City Councilor Rengelle Pelayo, president of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation, said the project aims to expose student leaders to the workings of City Hall.
“It’s meant to teach them the function of each and every city official, parliamentary procedures and what public servants to, especially at the Cebu City Hall,” she said. (LCR)
