Manila: President Rodrigo Duterte wants “pushcart classrooms” originator and 2009 CNN awardee Efren Penaflorida to head the Presidential Commission on Urban Poor, said the palace.
“The President has expressed his desire to appoint somebody who hails from the poor and marginalised sector to the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP),” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said on Sunday.
On Friday, Duterte said he wants Penaflorida to head the PCUP after he sacked its chairman, Terry Ridon over alleged excessive travels. “The President made mention that he wants someone who can contribute in solving the problems of the poor and activate pro-poor programmes such as the one featured by CNN known for his “pushcart classrooms”, Roque said.
Ridon, a lawyer and a former youth activist-turned-congressman before he was appointed by Duterte to the PCUP, had been heavily identified as a left-winger.
In contrast, Penaflorida has no known political affiliation and had known to have busied himself in pro-poor advocacies outside of the limelight since being hailed in 2009 by CNN as its “Hero of the Year”.
Growing up in urban poor surroundings in Don Gallo, Paranaque, Penaflorida suffered from bullying but was able to finish schooling.
At the age of 16, he established the Dynamic Teen Company, a youth group that aims to steer young people away from street gangs.
Penaflorida was awarded $100,000 (Dh367,290) by CNN, which he spent for books for his pushcart classrooms and on expanding the coverage of the pushcart classrooms to include other parts of Metro Manila and the provinces.
The palace said they have yet to reach Penaflorida to discuss his appointment.
“The President has instructed his Special Assistant Christopher “Bong” Go to look for that person, apparently referring to Mr. Efren Penaflorida, and ask him regarding the Chief Executive’s offer for him to join the administration. Nothing is certain at this point. Everything has to go through a process. The other party has yet to give a response. Both parties also need to personally discuss and thresh out expectations to the job and/or position,” Roque said.
The PCUP occupies a vital spot among government offices; it is a direct link to the masses and among the agencies at the forefront of the anti-poverty drive.
Earlier, Roque said the agency underwent a shake-up under the leadership of Ridon because it had not been performing as expected.
Joan Lagunda, former PCUP commissioner, said the agency had not been not hitting its targets and that the President though it prudent to sack its leaders.
Lagunda took exception to one of the agency’s programmes, the Emergency Land Acquisition Assistance for Victims of Eviction and Demolition (ELAVED), which she said was supposed to alleviate poverty, but was taken advantage of by urban land distribution beneficiaries.
“The shake-up in the PCUP mainly was the result of anomalies in the ELAVED,” Lagunda told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.
Earlier, it had been reported by media there had been multiple beneficiaries in the ELAVED programme, meaning that urban poor families who had already been given land for free, were cheating the system and were ending up as beneficiaries twice or even several times over.
