VICE President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s office has opened satellite offices in six areas across the Philippines to make its services closer to the people.
“We opened satellite offices in different parts of the country to give Filipinos easier access to the Office of the Vice President’s services,” she said in Filipino in a Facebook post, but did not specify the programs that are offered.
Ms. Duterte-Carpio has said she would continue to live in her hometown in the country’s south, although she would spend most of her days working as a public servant in Metro Manila — an arrangement that her father, former President Rodrigo R. Duterte, was used to.
The former Davao City mayor is also the secretary of the Department of Education, an agency previously led by economist and academic Leonor “Liling” Mirasol Magtolis-Briones.
As education chief, Ms. Duterte-Carpio is faced with a lingering learning crisis that had worsened due to the long lockdown and restrictions in the past two years.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines has also urged the new Education chief to fulfill her father’s promise of increasing the salaries of teachers.
“She should push for significantly increasing teacher’s salaries to correct the distortion in the government salary scheme where teacher’s pay lag behind those of uniformed personnel and nurses,” it said in a statement. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
