A proposed New York trip for 10 Cebu Provincial Board members to attend a drug rehabilitation workshop on Nov. 10 needs final approval from the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG).
The travel will be paid for by provincial funds, but the total cost to taxpayers has not yet been disclosed.
Gov. Hilario Davide III issued a memo authorizing the travel.
“You are authorized to charge all expenses for travel and room accommodations and such other expenses relative thereto against the available funds of your respective offices, subject to the usual accounting and auditing rules and regulations,” he said in a memo dated Oct. 3.
Davide told reporters his approval of the travel request filed by PB Member Carmen Durano-Meca, was “recommendatory.” Meca chairs the Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Commission (CPADAC).
“It will be up to the DILG for final approval. Mine was just recommendatory,” he said.
The registration fee for the event is US$1,500 or P63,000. This does not include the cost of plane fare, hotel expenses and per diems.
PB Member Grecilda Sanchez-Zaballero, who sponsored a resolution inviting the board members to attend the week-long workshop, said the event would help PB members to set up more public drug rehabilitation facilities in the province.
Sanchez said Cebu only has one government-run drug rehab facility in Argao town.
Davide said the workshop organizer, Daytop International Inc., requested for 15 participants from the PB.
Own expense
The governor said the organizer also invited mayors in the province.
“It turns out that Daytop also sent invitations to mayors. I heard some mayors also want to attend the trip to New York but I don’t know who they are,” he said.
“If they’re going, that will be their own expense. As for PB members, some are members of CPADAC. They want to join because it’s about drug rehab,” Davide added.
Aside from Sanchez, among those invited were PB members’ Peter John Calderon, Jude Thaddeus Sybico, Julian Daan, Raul Alcoseba, Grecilda Sanchez and Joven Mondigo.
Also invited were Sun Shimura, Miguel Antonio Magpale, Arleigh Sitoy and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) ex-officio member Aladin Caminero.
The board members have not confirmed their attendance in the workshop scheduled on Nov. 10 to 16.
The Daytop study tour brochure showed that participants in the workshop will undergo academic and socio-cultural activities.
Day tours
In the first two days, there will be a lecture training on “Treatment and Rehabilitation: Diverse Intervention and Treatment Approaches and “Clinical Challenges and Integration of Best Practices In Drug Treatment.”
On day 4, they will observe how Daytop’s drug rehab facility in Rhinebeck, US is being managed.
It also includes a day-long walking tour of mid-Manhattan to view New York City’s landmarks such as the Empire the State Building, Macy’s, Grand Central Station and Rockefeller Center.
Participants will also visit the American Museum of Natural History, Metropolitan Museum and Library and Hyde Park.
Daytop Village Foundation was founded in 1963 by Monsignor William O’Brien and is a major national organization mandated to assist in the rehabilitation of drug-dependent individuals through self-help. Correspondent Peter L. Romanillos