MikeLigalig.com

By Ven Arigo

Governor-elect Rep. Edgar Chatto’s congressional scholarship and subsidy program is one lasting legacy that has made his some 1,500 scholars really sad.

One program beneficiary named Lourdes Palapar of the Bohol Island State University (BISU) – Calape Campus cried as she articulated the value of Chatto’s support to her study.

Palapar, a junior education student, was candidly worried that she could no longer enjoy Chatto’s assistance strictly because the congressional scholarship is bound to close with the end of the solon’s third and last term as congressman.

The same was felt by the 38 Chatto scholars at the BISU-Bilar Campus whose studies were subsidized by the First District lawmaker even if they are from the Third District towns.

Josefina Baluca, mother of one of the scholars, confided that her child would not have attained her second year in college had it not been for the Chatto assistance.

She spoke in behalf of the parents of the BISU-Bilar scholars during the distribution of the last and final batch of the study grants of Chatto’s ending congressional scholarship and subsidy program. 

One student, Herlyn Cabig, who also emceed the program, touched the hearts of the mothers and fathers of the other scholars by saying that “to be a parent of a Chatto scholar is an opportunity.”

Chatto reiterated in the separate grant awarding at BISU-Calape Campus his plan to expand the province’s CPG Scholarship Program to assist more poor but deserving students.

He will adopt the subsidy scheme of his successful congressional scholarship program as one way of expanding the CPG scholarship once he assumes the governorship effective noon of June 30.

Chatto will also revive and fully implement the distinct scholarship program for the barangay officials and their children as well as the officials of the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK).

He had successfully lobbied with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for the revival and full implementation of the said program as mandated in the Local Government Code of 1991.  It was stopped few years back.

Chatto has been tying up with the CHED on another educational assistance approach called the Special Study Grant Program (SSGP).

Sadness assumed the faces of the BISU-Bilar scholars not just because they would miss the congressional scholarship program of Chatto.

They wished their education champion to come during the awarding of their final study grant last Wednesday so that they could have personally thanked him.

But Chatto’s congressional district chief-of-staff, former Provincial Board Member Billy Tongco, regretted to tell them that the solon was urgently called to join Sen. Miguel Zubiri in the provincial celebration of the anniversary of the death of the late Pres. Carlos P. Garcia in Tagbilaran City on the same day.

Chatto would have also distributed final scholarship grant checks to his scholars at the BISU-Clarin Campus but had to speed back to the city after awarding the same grants to BISU-Calape Campus scholars.

The BISU-Bilar scholars still had to render their prepared “thank you” song in the presence of Chatto’s representatives, who included the congressman’s scholarship program handler, Donna Lungay Briones.

They had prepared personalized thank you letters which they turned over to Tongco in the presence of BISU-Bilar Campus Director Virgilia Tejada, Student Affairs and Services Dean Narcisa Oppus, entire BISU-System Scholarship Coordinator Luz Ganas and other school officials.

Tejada confided that many students had earlier come to her for promissory notes.  She said Chato’s final study grant checks would help the students a lot.

The state university official described the scholars as “fortunate students.”  She told them to “thank God for giving us a man whose heart is so close to the education sector.”

Chatto “shared his heart to the Third District students enrolled at the BISU-Bilar Campus,” Tejada added.   

Chatto was further described as a leader who does not only possess a “generous heart” but he is a leader “equipped with virtues.”

In the BISU-Calape Campus grant awarding, campus director Dr. Inocencio Cosare declared that “we cannot fail in Chatto’s name” because he is “a man who is true to his words.”

Mayette Naquila, president of the Bohol Association of Student Councils (BASC), attested to how Chatto values the education of the Boholano youths.

Chatto’s present scholars numbering to some 1,500 are not just students of the six BISU campuses.  He has also assisted the students of leading private tertiary schools in the province.

The last-termer congressman and new Bohol governor come June 30 is the principal author of the law converting the then CVSCAFT into BISU, the first and only state university in this part of the country.

He fathered the CPG Scholarship Program of the province during his stint as the then vice governor and presiding officer of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. (Ven rebo Arigo) 

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=29701.0