ILIGAN City ― Over the weekend, the city had come up with a draft ordinance to effect the closure of once and for all, the “Colegio de Iligan.”
This was in compliance with the directive of city mayor Frederick Siao, a few days before. Siao then said that the move was necessary as this was the recommendation of the Technical Working Group which had been formed to study the said matter.
Said group, it was learned, headed by Prof. Rhodora Englis of the Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology, this city with the members coming from other sectors here. Siao said that such a recommendation of closing CDI because there are other requirements that it has to comply with and it is not practical to do so because of time and financial constraints and even the previous administration with all the time and the budget could not even come up with.
It was learned then that aside from the lot and structures that are required for CDI, other requirements were needed, such as the library and laboratory for the Criminology course, Midwifery, and social sciences even as it also required ten hectares for the course of Agriculture.
Last Thursday, the Sangguniang Panlungsod’s chair of the Committee on Education chair Rosevi Belmonte conducted a public hearing on the said matter and several youths were seen at the hearing place at the SP session hall bearing with them placards appealing for the city not to close CDI and they had to placate them by explaining the situation.
City Administrator Dr. Darwin Manubag then subsequently explained to them and to reporters that the 630 students at said Colegio would be taken care of by the city, with them to be enrolled at other schools even outside the city but within region 10 although they weren't sure if all the subjects there will be credited. They had talked this over with other schools that had the foregoing courses like the MSU-IIT, St. Peters College, and St. Michael College and they were all receptive, even if they were not sure whether all the subjects taken up at CDI would be credited, maybe, only the basics, such as English 1, or Math 1, and other basics.
Even if the CDI had been operating since August 2019 it was not able to comply with the requirements for its accreditation by the Commission on Higher Education even if the latter had reminded several times then Mayor Celso G. Regencia in 2021 as time seemed to be running out for said school.
It was then learned that should the said institution be continued, they were to be given only one year, to comply hence the decision to shelve it altogether.
