Proponents fail to justify fund aid to solo parents

CEBU, Philippines - The City Council’s committee on budget and finance finds as meritorious the proposal to give financial assistance to solo parents in the city, but it said the proponents failed to justify the proposed budget of P500,000 for the program.

   Councilor Jose Daluz III, chairman of the committee, said Councilors Gerardo Carillo and Leah Japson, proponents of the project, should support the proposed budget with data and figures.

   Daluz said the intention to uplift the conditions of solo parents and their children is noble and in consonance with the state’s policy to promote the family as the foundation of the nation, but Carillo and Japson must implement some “corrective measures.”

   In pushing for the project, Japson said the city’s move would translate statutes of Republic Act 8972 into actual benefits for single parents and their children. Officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development themselves described the proposal as “very laudable.”

   Under the proposal, solo parents would be introduced to livelihood projects to ensure that they land in either wage employment or self-employment through micro-entrepreneurship.

The law defines a solo parent as a parent left alone with responsibility of parenthood because of the death of a spouse, abandonment for one year, physical or mental incapacity of partner, unmarried, imprisonment, or a woman who gives birth as a result of rape or crimes against chastity even without final conviction of the offender. NLRC 7th Division now handleslabor cases from Visayas region

The National Labor Relations Commission Fourth Division, which sits in Cebu City and handles labor-related cases in the Visayas region, has been renamed as NLRC Seventh Division.

In a press release, the NLRC said that the Fourth Division has been currently assigned the appropriate number as NLRC Seventh Division pursuant to NLRC En Banc Resolution No. 04-10 Series of 2010 implementing Republic Act 9347.

RA 9347 provided for the creation of three additional divisions with the objective of augmenting the original three divisions—First, Second and Third, that are handling cases from the National Capital Region and other parts of Luzon.

Hence, the old Fourth Division handling cases from the Visayas is now the new Seventh Division while one of the newly created division handling cases from Luzon is now the new Fourth Division.

The new Seventh Division in Cebu City will now be the one handling appealed cases from the Visayas, particularly Regional Arbitration Branch Nos. VI, VII and VIII. — /WAB