The best thing that ever happened in Davao City from the clutches of the deadly CoViD 19 pandemic is the decision of the local government under the watch of Mayor Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio to provide educational assistance to school children who’ll be enrolling in public schools this year.
The beneficiaries will be those who are in their kindergarten years, in the elementary grades, in the secondary and those in their senior high school years. In a statement from the Office of the City Mayor kinder beneficiaries will receive P1,000 financial assistance, those in the elementary grades P2,000, and for junior and senior high school students – P3,000.
The mayor however, made it clear that those who will qualify for the financial support should be children of parents who lost their livelihood due to the pandemic. That is, that their employers closed operations, their informal livelihood cannot any more be done because of the health emergency quarantine imposition, and perhaps they cannot report for work under the general community quarantine (GCQ) regime because of lack of public transportation.
The LGU is targeting to provide the educational financial support to some 22 thousand students. And as of last Tuesday, City Hall reported that there are still 20 thousand slots available. In other words, only about 2 thousand applications have so far been processed and approved.
The apparently slow turn-out of applicants seems unusual to us considering the number of families suffering from deprivation of income due to the prevalence of the pandemic.
Thus, we can only assume of the following possibilities:
First, that the information dissemination on the educational assistance program of the local government is wanting; and second, that prospective applicant-parents have a hard time going to the government offices where the application forms are available due to lack of transportation. Both possible reasons are most likely happening in the rural areas.
It was not also clearly mentioned in the report whether the financial support is one-time dole-out or as monthly stipend. But considering the number of targeted beneficiaries a monthly assistance mode would mean a huge amount of money will be needed by the city for funding requirement even if such will only be for the duration of the pandemic.
But as it is, in this time of very serious financial straits the monetary educational aid is one big help to the parents of Davaoeno learners whose fate for the incoming school year still hangs in the balance.
For this move by the Davao City LGU, Davaoenos have a lot to thank their local officials led by the lady chief executive.
May this generosity be considered to remain even after the prevalence of the deadly corona virus disease in the city?
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Remember an item we wrote in our column only days back?
Yes, the one where we raised the question on the possibility of the boredom of people staying inside residences for so long affecting the behavior of some.
In that item we took up the report of a grandson in a Samal Island village hacking dead his two grandparents and wounding another relative who attempted to stop his attack. According to the police the perpetrator claimed he could not anymore stand the noise his grandparents had been making. So he had to kill them both to acquire his needed silence.
In that same item we also touched on another bloody incident in Cagayan de Oro City. The difference between the two crimes is that the one in Samal had persons as victims, while the one committed in Cagayan de Oro City the victim was an animal, a dog. The reason however, was similar. The assailants claimed to the police that they could not stand the noise created by the victims.
Now comes this report of a Panalum, Paquibato, Davao City resident hacking dead a 13-year-old girl neighbor. In a statement to the police the suspect said he was mad at his victim because, again, the latter’s dog’s barkings were so much noise for him.
Our suspicion is that the confessed perpetrator was afraid that he’d be bitten by the dog if it is the animal that he would attack. So he probably thought of killing the teenage owner instead. Good luck to all the assailants. They could be thinking that there is complete silence inside jail.
We are wondering really if the agony of being bored from home isolation has something to do with the criminal behavior of the suspects in all the three crimes we have mentioned here.
