For today’s special presentation on Straight from the Sky, we bring you the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) a non-government organization devoted to helping business organizations develop their own Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs in order to build better lives and communities especially in this part of the country. Call it a coincidence that we started the 8th anniversary of this tv show with Globe Telecom’s CSR program and it has caught on. CSR has been accepted in corporate circles.
Call it also coincidental that our show last week was about the Don Eduardo J. Aboitiz Cancer Center (EJACC) on their 20th year, while PBSP is also celebrating its 20th year of service in Central Visayas. Perhaps it was the spirit of Don Eduardo Aboitiz who has led us to this two shows, which we’ve always wanted to feature but never got into it until they are having their 20th anniversary celebrations. It was only during the taping of this show that I learned that Don Eduardo Aboitiz was also one of the founding fathers of the PBSP. With us tonight is Mr. Jose Antonio Aboitiz, Chairman of the Regional Committee of PBSP in the Visayas. So watch this very interesting show about CSR on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm.
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Congratulations to Cebu City Vice-Mayor Michael Rama for winning the election as National President for the Vice-Mayor’s League of the Philippines (VMLP). Cerwin Eviota reported to me it was a very hotly contested race. Mike won a total of 588 votes or 64% of the 925 voters. His opponent Vice-Mayor Danilo Leyble of Antipolo City got 337 votes or 36% of the total number. This election had the trappings of old politics where patronage and money was the order of the day. But Mike still won despite the P10,000 per vote that was rumored to have flowed.
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The late President Ramon “The Guy” Magsaysay Sr. became the most loved President of this country because of one famous statement he made that sunk into the national consciousness of the Filipino people when he said, “I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.” That means government should move heaven and earth when it comes to helping the poor and downtrodden citizens of this country. This is what most Local Government Units (LGU) have done for many years.
Suddenly this non-problem has become the latest issue when last week the Commission on Audit (COA) came up with new rules disallowing any financial assistance to Non-Government Organizations (NGO) and other institutions whose officers are related to any elected official of the locality. Of the six NGOs that get funding from Cebu City, three such organizations — the Sinulog Foundation, Inc., the Task Force Street Children and the Cebu Investment Promotion Center (CIPC) — would certainly collapse if they do not get funding from the City of Cebu.
These new COA rules gives the presumption of irregularity, that the officers running these NGOs are going to pocket these public funds for their own vested interests. I know these three organizations pretty well and they have never been involved in any financial scandal or anything closely resembling a scam!
I fully concur with Cebu City First Lady Mrs. Margot Osmeña who runs the Task Force Street Children that the job of COA is to check for irregularities and if they find out anything wrong, then that’s the time they can pull the plug on these recipient NGOs. Perhaps it is time to ask COA to get out of their offices and see for themselves what these NGOs have been doing. For instance the CIPC has been doing a wonderful job in promoting Cebu as an investment destination and it has been the envy of many Local Government Units (LGU). That brought a lot of jobs here!
We know too well what the Task Force Street Children has done a lot to rid our streets with street urchins, but they just don’t keep those kids off the street, they educate them and turn them into socially conscious citizens. Without this NGO, those kids are lost. In fact, we should even have more such organizations especially with our growing population.
As for the Sinulog Foundation, we know too well that the Sinulog has become known worldwide as the Mardi Gras of the Philippines and the country’s top tourism drawer. If the City of Cebu did not fund it, the Sinulog would never achieve the status that it has gotten today.
So you folks in COA, if you suspect any irregularity in the use of these public funds, you better believe that the media would even be ahead of you in finding irregularities. That new COA ruling is anti-poor and anti-Cebuano! Perhaps the only good news coming from COA is that COA Chief Guillermo Caraque was just replaced by Reynaldo Villar. Let’s see if things would change for the better in COA.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com