By Dhel Nazario
The Parañaque City government’s monthly allowance for all junior and senior high school students will be up to next year, a ranking city official assured on Sunday.
City Treasurer Dr. Anthony Pulmano said that the P500 allowance that high school students receive in the city will be until June next year as the city allocated P240 million for 48,000 high school students.
Pulmano explained that some students did not receive their monthly allowance on time because the DBP failed to distribute the ATM since the program started June this year. It was learned that the semi-government bank handed only 24,000 ATMs to students as of last month.
Under the implementing rules and regulations, qualified students will receive their monthly allowance through an automated teller machine or ATM card from Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).
Covered under the “special allowance” program are students from Grade seven to 12 of public schools within the territorial jurisdiction of Parañaque and those listed in the Department of Education (DepEd) roster.
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School and city hall officials led by Mayor Edwin Olivarez personally handed last week the P500 cash allowance to the school campuses of students who have not yet received their ATMs up to this month.
At the same time, school officials are still validating the number of students who will receive the monthly special allowance after they learned that some of the students are not residing in the city but in neighboring cities like Pasay and Taguig.
Under the approved ordinance, the P500 allowance will be given to the qualified students provided they attend their classes 80 percent of the time. The teachers will be in charge of monitoring the students’ attendance.
Pulmano added that they are encountering some flaws because the program has started only this year but promised that majority of the students will their monthly allowance even, they will not receive their ATM card until December.