MBTF turns table on opposition, recalls violations of Lim administration
ONE SCHOLAR NABBED IN BUY-BUST OPS
MAYOR Belen Fernandez turned the table on the opposition when one of its members raised questions on the selection process after one scholar of the present city administration was caught in an anti-drug operation of the police and reportedly in detention.
Fernandez quickly clarified that while she is not condoning the wrongdoing of that scholar, the latter’s unlawful act does not make all the other 5,000 scholars to be involved in criminal activities as opposition Councilor Librada Reyna Macalanda implied.
“One rotten scholar does not make all the 5,00 scholars also rotten,” she maintained.
Fernandez said she intends to visit the scholar in jail whom she only identified as one from Barangay Caranglaan who was getting good grades from 80 to 90 percent in all his subjects. Fernandez said she wants to encourage the boy to go back to school once he gets past his case. “No child should be left behind,“ she intoned.
Not resisting the urge to retort, Fernandez cited the Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM) of the Commission on Audit (COA) that found 140 scholars of the past Lim administration were not qualified while others could not be traced obviously for violations of the program.
“All of these defrauded the Dagupan City government of some P20 million,” she said,
Fernandez also cited ‘dummies’ enrolled as scholars and recalled one boy who denied receiving a single centavo from the scholarship grant, although his name was included in the payroll of scholars. “Who received the grant? An appointed city hall official?” she asked.
“We found that there were some 400 youths who were not from Dagupan, unqualified to enroll in college and who failed to pass in their chosen course,” Fernandez said.
She said when she began her term, the scholarship committee did not turn over the official list of scholars, so without names, addresses and contact numbers, her administration had no data to work on.
On the charge of the opposition that each barangay captain works on a quota for his/her select candidates, Fernandez said all that the village officials do is to certify that the scholars are residents of their places and are indigents. (Leonardo Micua)
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