Oro dev’t youth office bows to SK plans

By Uriel Quilinguing Contributing Editor

WHILE plans are crafted by the Oro Youth Development Office (OYDO) at City Hall, yet village youth councils (Sangguniang Kabataan or SK) in Cagayan de Oro set their own priorities, based on specific real and felt needs.

Lord Savior Centina, OYDO head, clarified this in a Philippine Information Agency forum at the SM City Uptown mall Wednesday last week, after his disclosure on the formulation of the city’s Youth Development Plan for 2023-2025.

Centina said the threeyear YDP is the product of consultation series they and the SK City Federation had at the community level since last year. It will be presented next month to the City Council for approval and adoption.

“But the new SK officers may come up with their own development plans,” said the youth development officer, citing peculiarities which should be taken into account to make the document truly responsive.

He said OYDO would refrain from getting involved with SK elections set October 30 this year, by suggesting to candidates what their political platforms or youth development agenda should be.

He said youth leaders in villages within the city’s urban and semi-urban areas may put garbage collection and disposal as their top priority, but this may not be true in upland and rural villages.

Security concerns, the OYDO chief said, may also vary, depending on prevailing threats such as drug addition, gang wars, drag-racing, and other petty crimes.

Centina, however, maintained plans must be aligned with the National Youth Commission’s (NYC) nine identified centers of youth participation, as embodied in the Philippine Youth Development Plan 2017-2022.

He enumerated these centers of youth participation as health, education, economic empowerment, social inclusion and equity, peace-building and security, active citizenship, governance, environment, and global mobility.

In the PYDP 2023-2025 which the NYC has adopted, the nine youth participation centers have been clustered into four, the youth commission posted in its Facebook wall.

In the same forum, Ezel Lambatan, Agricultural Productivity Operations Office (APOO) spokesperson, presented the trophy that a Cagayan de Orobased youth organization received last March 11, this year.

The Bayanihan sa Agrikultura para sa Kabatanonan, Kaumahan, ug Katubigan (Collective in Agriculture for the Youth, Farms and Water Bodies) or The BAKA, where Lambatan served as program director, was adjudged as Ten Accomplished Youth Organization (TAYO) national awardee.

TAYO Awards, which recognizes and supports the outstanding contributions of youth organizations in the Philippines, started in 2012 and used to be a flagship program of the NYC until 2019.

Meanwhile, OYDO has been supporting The BAKA in its year-long program to capacitate the youth on value-chain workshops and activities, agriculture- fisheries inputs, business planning, marketing, and leadership trainings.

The BAKA members are in 29 chapters with linkages of 4-H (Head, Heart, Heart, Health) Clubs, mostly belonging to the out-of-school youth sector, aged 30 years old and below.

They had availed of trainings in 10 Agriculture Training Instituteaccredited learning sites in Cagayan de Oro.

Data from the Community Based Management System (CBMS) show Cagayan de Oro had over 172 thousand OSYs in 2020.

Centina said OYDO has been assisting OSYs and all eligible members of the youth sector get the education and trainings they need, avail of scholarships, as well as getting gainfully employed.

OYDO also seeks to empower village youth leaders (SK officials), provide leadership trainings, and encourage meaningful participation. (MT)