Senatorial aspirant and Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano has pushed for improved access and opportunities to education, saying this is key to the development of the nation.
“My siblings and I were taught by our father, Senator Rene ‘Compañero’ Cayetano, that education is the key. Our mother was a teacher, our grandmother was a public-school teacher, and my wife is a scholar,” Cayetano, a former House Speaker, said.
Cayetano comes from a family of educators. His grandmother, Julianna Cabrera, and mother, Sandra Schramm, were both teachers.
Meanwhile, his father, former Senator Renato Cayetano, was a professor in law school. He said he will push for greater government support for education once he completes his comeback to the Senate.
“This is one of the matters I will push for because if you help parents in the education of their children, it’s a weight off their shoulders especially in the middle of a pandemic where we’re all still recovering,” said Cayetano.
The former Foreign Affairs secretary, who is gunning for a Senate seat in the May elections, said he plans to use Taguig City’s education and scholarship system as a blueprint for these future reforms.
Taguig City has been providing students with free education and supplies from preschool to college in order to give them greater opportunities in the future. The cost of major school events, such as graduation programs and junior proms, are also shouldered by the city government.
“From elementary school, uniforms are free. Even bags, notebooks, and hygiene kits with toothbrushes, as well as medical and dental check-ups… and we have computer-assisted learning programs from Singapore,” Cayetano said.
High school graduates in Taguig automatically become the city’s scholars, with college and post-graduate students entitled to subsidies amounting to P15,000 to P50,000 each.
Cayetano said cities become progressive only when they give the right opportunities for their people to uplift themselves.
