News Briefs

FREE LEGAL AID FOR ELDERLY

GUIDELINES are being drafted for a free legal aid program for senior citizens in Cebu City

Genesis Ponce, City Mayor’s consultant, said Earl Bonachita, Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City chapter (IBP Cebu City chapter) president, has agreed to the proposal of the Cebu City government and the IBP Cebu City chapter to provide legal assistance to senior citizens for free.

“We have plenty of laws regarding that and so the city government will coordinate with the IBP Cebu City chapter so that senior citizens will enjoy free legal services,” said Ponce.

He said they will work out guidelines for the project and may even be able to extend the free service to other beneficiaries.

City Hall is looking for a site to establish a complaints center.

Many senior citizens clamor for legal assistance to follow up pension claims and to complain when senior discounts for products and services are not honored./Correspondent Jose Santino Bunachita

POLITICS, SERVICE, AND TARPAULINS

CEBU City Mayor Michael Rama changed the venue of the monthly “City Hall at your Doorstep” activity after he saw Bando-Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan tarpaulins in the first venue – the barangay Cogon-Pardo gym.

The mayor decided to  move the activity to a vacant lot a block away.

The activity offers free medical and dental services for residents.

The mayor said he changed the venue out of “delicadeza” since banners of his political rival were in the gym, said Carlo Duga-Duga, public information officer.

Rama said he didn’t want to politicize the activity so he moved it.

“If the city officials had just told us ahead that there would be a problem because of the BO-PK bannners, we would have just taken them out,” said barangay councilor Jessie Bacalso.

Duga-Duga, however, said barangay officials should have anticipated that City Hall would find the situation unacceptable out of respect for the administration. /Correspondent Tweeny Malinao