Osmeña eyes communal housing-work model for single mothers
The initiative is part of what he describes as his “three challenging concepts” under his "ungovernment" governance framework
Vice Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña unveiled on Thursday, June 19, initial plans to support the BPO industry in Cebu City, including a dedicated transport system and a work-study facility. | CDN Photo/ Pia Piquero
CEBU CITY, Philippines – What if single mothers could work, live, and raise their children together under one roof, all while employed in the BPO sector?
Incoming Cebu City Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña on Thursday, June 19, unveiled an unconventional social experiment and that is a communal housing-and-employment project tailored for single mothers, designed to create a “mini kibbutz” system in the city that fuses employment, shared living, and child care support.
In a consultation with a business process outsourcing (BPO) company, Osmeña said he is looking to partner with the private sector to hire and support an initial batch of 40 single mothers who will live together, work in the same call center, and send their children to the same daycare or school, all coordinated through the city government and a managing institution.
“We’re going to try to develop a very challenging model of having single mothers work in a center,” Osmeña said. “We’re going to start small… only 40. Why 40? Because that’s the size of the bus.”
READ: Tomas proposes 24/7 government services in Cebu City
The $38.7 Billion BPO Industry: Filipino workers’ English skills crucial to success
The idea, he explained, is to remove the burdens that prevent qualified single mothers from joining the workforce — childcare, food, housing, and transportation — by pooling them into a communal setup subsidized and supported by both government and private players.
Under Osmeña’s plan, the 40 participants will live in a city-built boarding house, commute to work together in the same shift via bus, and return home together. Childcare, food preparation, laundry, and essential needs like toiletries will be handled communally or outsourced to service providers paid by a managing institution.
The BPO company would not pay the employees directly. Instead, salaries will go through the institution, which will deduct expenses for food, housing, services, and schooling.
“Everything’s supplied, including your toothpaste, your toothbrush, everything,” Osmeña said. “We’ll have one communal kitchen. There are economies of scale. We’ll hire outside people to do the cooking. Your laundry is done. The nursery will have its own attendants.”
The concept, he added, takes inspiration from Israel’s “kibbutz” model, collective communities that flourished after the country’s founding in 1948.
He described the approach as “a form of communism with a twist,” voluntary and aimed at helping those with nowhere else to go.
“You can leave anytime. But if you have nowhere to go, try this. It’s something for you,” he said. “The bottom line here is: this woman can go back to her sari-sari store, or she can try this and maybe someday buy her own condo.”
The program will start with two structures, one serving as the pilot and the second immediately built with improvements from the first. Osmeña calls this the “Series 2” model, a continuous loop of building, feedback, demolition, and redesign, until the concept is perfected.
“It’s trial and error. Then we go back and demolish Series 1, and keep upgrading. How long will it take? I don’t know. But I have the faith that, at some point in time — God willing — we’ve got something. At least better than where they came from,” he said.
Though early in development, Osmeña said the city is committed to investing in innovation with social impact, especially one that could serve as a replicable model for other cities.
He also emphasized the importance of finding the right BPO company to take on the pilot group.
“This is not government. This is ungovernment,” he said. “The government tries to fix everything, [but] they keep getting screwed up. I want to fix one thing… just one. And fix it completely.”
Osmeña, who returns to Cebu City Hall after serving three terms as mayor, is expected to play a major role in shaping policy alongside Mayor-elect Nestor Archival Sr., who begins his term on June 30.
This initiative is part of what Osmeña describes as his “three challenging concepts” under his “ungovernment” governance framework. /csl
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.