Movie booklets for seniors and PWDs tutorial for kids, athletes’ incentives

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – The city government and concerned offices are fast-tracking the printing of movie pass booklets to implement the upgraded five-day theater admission privilege for senior citizens and persons with disability in the city.

Councilor Elmer Datuin said the city earlier planned to start the implementation for June 10 but decided to reset the date to June 17 due to the need to comply with the requirements as imposed under the Memorandum of Agreement with the SM Prime Holdings Inc.

 One of the requirements for admission is the showing of the movie pass booklets along with the senior citizen identification cards.

The booklets will have to be obtained from the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA) at the Senior Citizens Center at Salud Mitra barangay for the senior citizens and at the Persons with Disability Affairs Office (PDAO) at the City Mayor’s Office for the PWDs.

Both offices are currently working out the printing of the booklets to make the June 17 deadline.

PDAO Head Samuel Aquino said they started processing and issuing the booklets to PWDs last June 10 and as of last Tuesday have seven grantees.

OSCA Head Margaret Tolero, on the other hand, said their booklets are still in the process of printing and will not be available until the last week of June thus she begged for a little more patience from the senior citizens.   

Mayor Mauricio Domogan earlier signed a Memorandum of Agreement with SM represented by SM Lifestyle Inc. Senior Vice President Maria Anicia Naval for the grant of a 100 percent discount on SM Cinema admission prices to the SM Cinemas “once a day from Monday to Friday, anytime and any movie” to both sectors.

The privilege however does not apply during sneak previews, advance screenings, premiere nights, special public screenings, sports or live events, film festivals and to 3D format, large screen format, DC format, IMAX format, R13 and R16 horror movies.

In exchange, the city will grant SM an incentive through an ordinance that provides a rebate of three percent from the amusement tax of ten percent of the gross receipts from movie house admission fees.

To prevent any anomaly, the city will furnish SM with a master list of the qualified beneficiaries for counterchecking.  

It was emphasized that the privilege is exclusive for PWDs and seniors citizens who are residents of Baguio.

As per the approved guidelines, no PWD or senior citizen will be allowed to enter the cinema when the movie has started and it will be the SM management’s discretion not to allow PWD or senior citizens to enter the cinema due to misconduct of unruly behavior.

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The Baguio City Public Library will offer a reading tutorial for free for children aged six and above.

City Librarian Mercedes Bernardo said the coaching will be for both English and Filipino and will run from June to August for once-a-week session either Friday or Saturday 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the children’s section of the library.

The reading program will cover phonemic awareness, phonics, sight words, vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Those interested may register at the city library.

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Additional guidelines were adopted on the grant of incentives and assistance to athletes, coaches and associations.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan issued an administrative order to clarify rules covering “exceptional athletes who are neither residents of nor students enrolled in any school who, by their affiliation with local sports clubs or organizations in the city, contribute to the overall development of particular sports disciplines by providing transfer of knowledge to local athletes, which ultimately inure to the benefit of the City, its residents and students.”

As per the added guidelines for national competitions, athletes of said category may only be allowed by the City Government to participate in national competitions if there are no other qualified athletes categorized as residing or studying in the City of Baguio.  

They will be entitled to incentives under Ordinance Numbered 20-16 only when they are expressly allowed by the city government to participate in national sports competitions and provided, their respective accredited clubs, gyms or organizations certify that, as members thereof, they have contributed in the transfer of knowledge to other members of said clubs, gyms or organizations. 

They may be considered as attached athletes under Resolution No. 1-16 of the  City Sports Promotion and Development Council where there are other qualified athletes to fill up available slots in the Baguio City delegation and provided said athletes may be considered as regular members of the delegation only in the event that there are no other resident athletes or students qualified for slots.