Mayor Edgardo Labella (right) signs the ordinance providing free school supplies and uniforms for Cebu City’s public school students. Vice Mayor Michael Rama was present during the signing of the approval of the ordinance at City Hall. | Delta Dyrecka Letigio
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Elementary public school pupils in Cebu City will start getting free school supplies, uniforms, and shoes in 2020.
This after the City Council passed an ordinance providing annual school supplies and uniforms to all elementary school pupils.
Mayor Edgardo Labella signed the ordinance on November 26, 2019, with Vice Mayor Michael Rama and Councilors Raymond Alvin Garcia and Raul Alcoseba, the proponents of the ordinance.
Labella said that P500 million would be allocated to the pupils’ school supplies in the 2020 annual budget that had yet to be approved by the Council.
The mayor is hoping that with the free school supplies and uniforms, the children of the city will be encouraged to go to school.
“There are more or less 190,000 public school students, and it is high time that we give them school supplies and even uniforms,” said Labella.
He said many of the pupils stopped going to school because their parents could not afford to sustain their education.
The free supplies would help cut the cost that marginalized households spend for their children’s schooling.
The first set of school supplies will be given on June 2020, during the start of the Academic Year 2020 to 2021.
Meanwhile, Labella also announced that all public school teachers would be given a P10,000 cash gift this Christmas.
The budget will be taken from the Supplemental Budget No. 3 amounting to P118 million to be approved by the City Council. /dbs