Pampanga school principals, district supervisors get laptops

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines  – Public school principals and district supervisors in Pampanga’s third congressional district were recently given some 165 laptops worth P3 million by Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr., who is currently the House deputy minority speaker.

Gonzales’ project, dubbed “ Titser’s PET” or Titsers Pushing for Education and Technology, is aimed at improving the school officials’ efficiency by freeing them from “unnecessary clutter” in their office work so they can devote more time to teachers and students.

The distribution, the first of its kind in the province, is part of the project of second-term Gonzales to provide laptops to every public school in the district.

“With these laptop computers at your disposal, I’m hoping that you will become even better in your roles as school principals and supervisors,” Gonzales told the recipients during a ceremony at his legislative office in Barangay Sindalan here.

The project, he said, also aims to provide schools with the latest technology in data and information management for management and instructional purposes.

Under Gonzales’ project, the laptops become property of the schools and are entrusted to the recipients under a memorandum receipt.

Gonzales said the laptops will be used solely for school functions and work and are not to be sold or disposed of by the school in any manner.

The laptop project is only part of Gonzales’ comprehensive education program for his constituents that include infrastructure development, school maintenance and repair, scholarship grants for high school and college students, assistance to day care centers, and vocational and technical training.

To date, Gonzales has provided educational support to 10,000 high school and 2,500 college students, 7,000 day care pupils, and more than 1,000 vocational and technical trainees – considered to be the biggest such program in Pampanga.

Among Gonzales’ landmark legislative work in his first term was the conversion of the Don Honorio Ventura College of Arts and Trade into a state university, the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University.

Gonzales also authored a law for the complete rehabilitation of lahar-devastated Bacolor town, the home of the first-ever state university and oldest school in Pampanga.