Outgoing DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro (from left), City Savings President and CEO Catalino Abacan, DepEd Assistant Secretary Tina Ganzon and DepEd Undersecretary for Partnerships and External Linkages Mario Deriquito during the Adopt-a-School Partners Appreciation. (CONTRIBUTED)
THE Department of Education (DepEd) recognized City Savings Bank together with 12 other Aboitiz firms along with the Aboitiz Foundation for their valuable contribution to the improvement of the country’s public school education last June 10 at the Meralco Multipurpose Hall in Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City.
The Adopt-a-School Program Partners Appreciation event kicked off with the Partnerships’ Mapping Workshop where DepEd mapped out each stakeholders’ and partners’ focal areas per region, ranging from infrastructure to non-infrastructure and multicomponent corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
This was done to obtain baseline information on the presence of DepEd partners, including City Savings in all provinces and cities in the country, and to identify educational requirement gaps that still need to be addressed in terms of challenges and constraints.
DepEd Undersecretary for Partnerships and External Linkages Mario Deriquito welcomed everyone in his opening remarks and thanked the partners for their collaborative efforts with DepEd, which is instrumental in making the goal of providing quality education for all a reality.
In his closing message, outgoing DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro said, “It’s been a long journey, and I am proud of what we had accomplished through our partnerships with all of you.
In 2010 when I first started my term in DepEd, we had P2 billion worth of Brigada Eskwela projects, and in 2015, we had P8 billion worth of projects.
That’s a 400 percent increase in a span of five years. I have never seen such phenomenal growth, and this is all because of your valuable support and generous assistance in the field of basic education.”
City Savings President and Chief Executive Officer Catalino Abacan said, “Implementing CSR projects have always been an integral part of how we do business in City Savings. Over the years, we’ve seen our collective efforts in partnership with DepEd to uplift our education system through various programs such as Brigada Eskwela, other asset donations as well as leadership, development and skills building training for teachers. We are focused on helping our public school teachers because we believe that better teachers will create better students that will result to a better nation.”