Stop invitations to graduation rites

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young has criticized education officials in Cebu City for coming up with unnecessary and expensive invitations for the graduation rites of their respective schools, which he considers as a waste of funds.

Young, chairman of the City Council’s Committee on Education, received several invitations from the various public elementary and high schools for their graduation activities.

The vice mayor said the printing of the message of Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro in the invitation is no longer necessary.

He added that aside from Luistro’s message to the graduates, several names of DepEd officials were also printed in the four-to-six-page invitations.

Young prepared a letter to be sent to DepEd Cebu City School’s Superintendent Rhea Mar Angtud to inform her of his sentiments.

“May I bring to your attention the wastage being done by our public schools every graduation… This has been going on for as long as I can remember,” Young said.

He was referring to the practice of putting in the invitation the list of DepEd officials from the national level to the regional and division levels. The invitation also includes the names of all district and education supervisors and even the division cashier and supply officer.

“Grabeha, hasta ang ngalan sa bodegero giapil pa sa invitation. What is the purpose of putting this? Will the graduating class be given a test afterwards? How many will actually read and remember the names after the program?” the vice mayor said.

His name is also in the invitation.

Young finds it ironic that DepEd officials recently announced the planting of a million trees and yet, “a blatant example of wasting trees is right in front of you, or maybe you don’t know that paper comes from trees?”

The vice mayor said he doesn’t mind if school authorities will not include the names of the city officials in the invitations.

Young suspects that school officials had asked the graduates to contribute for the needed amount for the printing of the invitations.  (FREEMAN)