ILOILO CITY (PNA) -- The P2-million grant of United Parcel Service (UPS) to Honest Accountable Living for Ilonggos and a Graft-free Iloilo (H.A.L.I.G.I) Foundation for the training of city’s public school teachers on English language proficiency in 2007 was fully consumed on that specific program and was not used for 2010 elections, said HALIGI executive director Norman Tabud.
HALIGI is a non-government organization (NGO) that was organized by Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog when he was still the vice mayor. The foundation’s budget depends on support from the community and private well-meaning individuals, and definitely not from the government.
A total of 400 public school teachers benefited on the said training conducted by several private instructors coming from Panpacific Carrier Management Institution- a registered training provider in this city which is being managed by retired City School Division Superintendent Eda Endonila.
Tabud, also an executive assistant to the Office of the City Mayor, said the participant has an allocated budget of P 5, 000 each payable to their instructors, facility, and hand-outs, among others. He added they gave the budget directly to the Department of Education- Iloilo (DepEd- Iloilo) upon finishing the training of every batch. The DepEd- Iloilo is the one paying the hired institution.
“We are just providing the budget to DepEd-Iloilo, which is our partner in materializing this program”, he said.
There are 13 batches. Each batch has almost 30 participants that would complete 100 hours of training depending upon the schedule convenient for the participants either during weekdays or weekends.
The training focuses more on speech and reading power development, vocabulary enrichment, writing, language, creative thinking styles, culmination of talents and skills, and personality development.
Tabud also said that the mayor has come-up with the initiative and solicited financial support from UPS after he noticed that some public school teachers were not fluent in speaking and writing in English.
“As an outcome, it helps boast the self-confidence of our teachers”, he said.
Tabud cleared that no single -centavo from UPS fund was allocated to other projects. He said if ever there are some expenses spent by the foundation on other activities the resources for these came from other private sponsors.
He said the HALIGI is maintaining its scholarship program given to high school students. Tabud also said that they have now 30 scholars enrolled from eight national schools in this city.
Tabud said there was no major program for now after the mayor temporary stopped sending solicitation letters to other private sectors so to preempt conflict of interest with his present position. (PNA)