City scholarship for public students now in jeopardy

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu City's scholarship program for deserving students from the city's public high schools might be affected after Mayor Michael Rama decided that the P20 million that was part of the budget appropriated for the project will be used for other purposes, particularly for his priority projects to be implemented within his first 100 days in office.

Budget officer Nelfa Briones explained that while the city appropriated P100 million for the scholarship program of former mayor and now South District Rep. Tomas Osmeña, only about P6 million of the amount can be used for the project during the first semester of this school year as there were only around 5,000 students who availed of the city's grant.

The city appropriated P10 million estimating that 10,000 graduates from public secondary schools in Cebu City will avail of the grant, but statistics showed only half of the graduates decided to go to college.

Councilor Jose Daluz III, chairman of the City Council's committee on budget and finance, told Briones to be sure that the city can find other funds that can be used to augment the budget for the city's scholarship program.

"Let him just justify it to the people. But the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswa-gan's program is to help our high school graduates go to college," Osmeña's said regarding Rama's move.

Osmeña said Rama should continue granting the scholarship program to deserving students, otherwise the people will get mad at him.

It was agreed that for students who are scholars in some schools, the P10,000 scholarship grants can be also used to cover other expenses like books and miscellaneous expenses and not only tuitions fees. (THE FREEMAN)