Providing schools in farthest barrios
One of those feted and recognized during the recently held Civil Service Commission (CSC) Honor Awards Program (HAP) Regional Awards Rites is a vice mayor in the town of Jose Abad Santos in Davao Occidental.
Vice Mayor Jason John A. Joyce was awarded with a Dangal ng Bayan Award for his transformational leadership whose mission was to provide education to kids in his town’s farthest sitios, especially since Jose Abad Santos lies in the southernmost tip of Mindanao and is one of the farthest municipalities in the region.
“In one sitio, Sitio Kidama in barangay Kalbay the students had to walk eight kilometers to the barangay proper and because of that 90% of the students do not pursue their education because the schools are so far,” Joyce recalls their plight.
When he was elected as vice mayor of the town he immediately pushed for several landmark ordinances. One of which, was providing extension and integrated schools in the far-away sitios.
“I have five landmark ordinances, one of the ordinances is providing support to the Department of Education, financial assistance to students, financial assistance to marginalized people, financial assistance to the women’s sector and to cultural activities. We wanted to give funds to the different sectors of the municipality to make them productive,” Joyce said.
He considers the town’s support to DepEd as one of his proudest accomplishments.
“Through our initiative we opened many schools in the highlands. For this year we built more than five extension and
integrated schools to answer the need of the community particularly in the K to 12 program (where) we need to add Grade 7 and Grade 12 in every barangay,” the vice mayor says. /