LEGAZI CITY, July 26 (PNA) — Gov. Joey Sarte Salceda has suspended classes in both public and private schools after 12:00 p.m. on Monday for all levels and all areas in Albay, “as both private-public school students must have equal opportunity to learn a lesson.”
“Indeed, the State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) of President Benigno S. Aquino III offers our youth a good lesson which they can ideally learn by listening together with their family at home,” Salceda explained.
In exchange for their afternoon classes, he said, college students may be required to submit an one-paragraph reaction to the SONA to their professors.
Salceda also instructed heads of provincial departments and all LGUs under his supervision to discharge their respective staffs early after lunch.
Provincial department heads, the governor said, are to submit to the Provincial Planning Development Office a one-pager policy, program and project recommendations arising from the SONA.
“Inasmuch as the SONA is a report of the government, we also enjoin national government agencies operating in Albay — except those engaged in delivering health, responding to emergency and in keeping the peace and order and those currently exempted like Bureau of Internal Revenue, Bureau of Customs and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas — to give their respective staffs the same opportunity.
Obviously, he said, this sector includes Department of Education teachers and state universities, colleges and schools professors.
“For public interest and public welfare, I invoke my powers under the law, so I ordered these,” Salceda explained.
“At this stage of our nation-building, it will help us grow together as a people to listen ourselves with utmost openness to the last SONA of our beloved President Benigno S. Aquino III and to learn and discern its meaning for ourselves and for our children, and for our community,” the Albay chief executive added.
Corollarily and just as importantly, he said, tomorrow throughout the day, particularly in the afternoon, “we are also given a chance to watch our political leaders, business leaders and social leaders and the ‘common tao’ articulate what they expect and how they respond to the President’s accounting of the performance of his government for the past five years and his exhortations for our nation’s future.” (PNA)