Davao del Norte: Lawyer Elisa Evangelista-Lapiña, municipal administrator of Municipal Government of Santo Tomas, said that the Evangelista administration is doubling its effort to fix the lingering issues and concerns floated by the students of the locally-funded college Santo Tomas College of Agriculture Science and Technology (STCAST) that were left unresolved from the previous years.
In a campus-wide student assembly held at the college’s covered court on Friday, March 6, a score of college students reported poor ventilation and illumination in some classrooms, undelivered t-shirts and uniforms, filthy comfort rooms, shortage of books, tuition fee refunds, parking area, damaged blackboards, outdated and dilapidated infrastructures, among others.
About 500 college students attended the assembly on Friday afternoon with the college administration, faculty and staff. Students took turns in airing their issues and concerns during the open forum.
This prompted Lapiña to take a decisive step to solve the problems in the LGU-owned STCAST since the problems were lingering issues that were left unresolved from the previous years.
“The intent of attending the assembly is for me to personally hear their issues and concerns coming from the students. This is part of our process to sort things out in our attempt to normalize the operations of the STCAST,” Lapiña said.
In response to the students’ clamor, Lapiña said that those issues and concerns that are “doable” would be implemented immediately, rooting to the political mantra of his mayor-father: #AksyonAngSolusyon.
“The issue on poor illumination, filthy comfort rooms, and others will be given immediate action because we have readily available resources to remedy the problems at hand. The rest of the concerns will be tackled in the executive level with our Mayor and other offices such as the Planning Office for us to include this in our development plan,” she said.
After the assembly, she also conducted an ocular inspection of the facilities and rooms within the college’s premises and interviewed students to further elicit feedbacks about the STCAST operations.
“All their sentiments were true and our Mayor has instructed the concerned offices to provide the necessary solution to remedy the situation,” Lapiña said.
She further pointed out that the recent situation highlights the need to revisit the STCAST’s policies for operations.
“There’s really a need to revisit the STCAST ordinance and its related policies for operations. What can you expect from a program that was hastily plan out. This time we want its operation to be regular and compliant to the terms and conditions set by CHED,” she said.
She then recalled that when his mayor-father assumed the mayoralty post back in July 1, they expedite the release of the CHED recognition to legitimize its operation for the Academic Year 2019-2021.