Dads eye amendment to city’s children code

July 18, 2020 Metro BLISTT

The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, approved on third and final reading and for publication a proposed ordinance that seeks to amend certain provisions of Ordinance No. 74, series of 2009, or the Children’s Welfare Code, to make it compliant with prevailing standards.
The ordinance authored by Vice Mayor Faustino A. Olowan and Councilors Betty Lourdes F. Tabanda, Lilia A. Fariñas and Levy Lloyd Orcales states it will be a declared policy of the city government to effectively promote, fully enhance and institutionalize the survival, protection, development and participation, rights of children within the framework of advancing general welfare in their furtherance of integrated and equitable development; to provide a continuum of services for children and their families from prevention to treatment considering, whenever possible, prevention, diversion and early intervention in the home, in the schools and the community; to serve the welfare of children which be the paramount consideration in actions and undertakings concerning them, consistent with city autonomy and the principle of best interest of the children as enunciated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, among others.
The ordinance adds that the children in the family, schools, community or other organizations or institutions, shall be heard and each child, regardless of sex, age and tribe, has the right to express his or her opinion freely and to have that opinion taken into account in any matter or procedure affecting the child, and that it shall be the responsibility of the adults to provide opportunities for children to express their views to obtain, make ideas or information known, regardless of tribe, religion, age and sex.,
The ordinance stipulates there shall be a Children’s Congress to be held in November every year to be participated in by children representatives from all barangays of the city government and that the barangays shall conduct their own children’s assembly prior to the aforesaid Congress.
Further, there shall be a Family Fun Day for children to be held every year, and to be participated in by children from all barangays of the city. The city shall guarantee the representation of the youth in appropriate special bodies and that all organized youth groups in the city shall be required to register with the City Social Welfare and Development Office.
The ordinance orders that a unit for children’s concerns to realize the provisions of the code shall be created or strengthened at the CSWDO and that it shall be the special coordinating and implementing arm of the city government to focus on children specific programs and projects.
Dexter A. See