By Leonardo Micua

 

WE heard that 2,352 public schools in Ilocos Region or about 90 percent are now doing the expanded face to face classes as the COVID-19  threat has somewhat diminished in Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte.

A report quoting Department of Education Regional Director Tolentino Aquino stated that only about 300 public schools are not yet conducting in-person classes but are priming to do the same in the next school year (2022-2023) which starts in August.

Fortunately, there was no record of learners and teachers contracting the coronavirus while conducting in-person classes.

Outgoing Education Secretary Leonor Briones, who will be replaced by incoming Vice President Sara Duterte, expects more face-to-face classes to be opened soon, not during the tail end of the 2021-2022 school year but the next.

Most of our learners from the public schools believe that they will become smarter if not sharper if they go to school and interact with their teachers and classmates like it used to be. Being kept inside their homes for two years because of the pandemic to do their lessons via instructions in the manual, bored many to no end.

But what’s this hybrid arrangement being proposed by DepEd officials under Briones that face-to-face classes will be initially interfaced with manual learning, which means the learners will not be in school all days of the week because the coronavirus might stage a comeback.

We hope DepEd will coordinate this matter closely with the Department of Health that knows better if COVID and its attendant variants and sub-variants still pose as a serious  threat to the health of the Filipinos anew.

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When is the baratillo in downtown Dagupan going?, one radio anchor asked incoming Mayor Belen Fernandez in the former’s radio program. “I don’t know”, was the curt reply of Belen, saying the outgoing mayor still calls the shot until July and she can only give a definitive reply once she has already taken over the reins of the city government.

But many believe Brian Lim will not let the baratillo go till his last day even if the event which he put up as an extra-attraction to the Bangus Festival in April, is without an ordinance authorizing the closure of the Galvan Steet. 

The baratillo is considered as a veritable gold mine to ‘some’, you know what I mean, but there are those who think it should not be allowed to continue beyond June because it is more than giving the city a black eye, it is one big eye sore in Dagupan. 

I don’t think many still shop in the baratillo or patronize those food stalls installed in front of the walled premises of the city hall complex.

And the row of stalls occupying a small area owned by the city, positioned in front of the parking area of CSI Market Square? Of course, Belen will have to relocate them. These are a bigger eye sore to passersby along A.B.Fernandez (ABF) Avenue than the baratillo. 

We note that with still 25 days before Belen finally regains her seat, vegetable vendors are being allowed by city hall to sell their items on the sidewalks of ABF.

In order to bring back Dagupan to its old productive state, Belen must put order in the city’s Central Business District and doggedly begin a citywide clean up drive to make her city attractive to investors and visitors as well as she once did.  

But first, she has to sweep the derelicts out of city hall!!

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What’s this I heard that job order employees of the Dagupan City government have not received their pay for over a month? Learned this from of the JOEs at the city council who are still around, doing their work.

They told me that their last take home pay was last April or before the election. They blame the city hall officials for the slow processing of their payroll but salaries and wages of city hall workers should not be affected by a reenacted budget.

One said their wages were only being delayed by just three days during the administration of then Mayor Belen Fernandez, and it was caused by their submission of their daily time records. But under Brian Lim, it has been taking months before they could receive their pay, starving them and their families.

With Belen coming soon on July 1, they expect better treatment from her. Maawa naman kayo dyan sa city hall sa mga JOEs!!

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