Cash for TOY awardees assured

Gov. Juan N. Babauta will provide the monetary rewards due to this year’s Public School System teacher of the year awardees under his Education Initiative program, according to his senior policy advisor Bob Schwalbach.

“There’s money available. The governor has done that for two years in a row. I’m sure he wants to do it again. It’s part of his education initiative. It’s something that’s important to him,” said Schwalbach in an interview.

This developed even as Babauta was reportedly not present during the PSS Education Day event held at the sprawling LaoLao Bay Golf Resort on Wednesday, Nov. 23.

PSS employees, who attended the event, said the governor’s name was in the program but he was nowhere among the guests.

The seeming mystery about the absence of the exiting chief executive was even highlighted when Education Commissioner Rita H. Inos reportedly remarked that she would be giving the Executive Award of Excellence on the assumption that the corresponding funding from the Executive branch is still available.

“She prefaced her announcement… She made that public and I thought, even if that’s true, I don’t know why she would bother to say that,” said a PSS personnel.

Inos has been associated with the Covenant Party, which defeated Babauta in this year’s gubernatorial race.

In 2001, Covenant Party’s Benigno R. Fitial, whose running mate then was Inos, lost badly to the Babauta team.

When asked about the governor’s absence in the PSS event last week, Schwalbach said that he only received a voice message from PSS informing him about the event a day before it was held.

He said he retrieved the message on the day of the event itself, making it hard for them to prepare the needed presentation checks for the awardees.

“I got a voicemail from PSS the afternoon before the event asking me to prepare the check… but I didn’t get the message until the day of the event,” he said.

When pressed, he admitted that in the previous years, the governor would normally get a briefing from PSS about the annual event “ahead of time.”

As of Friday, he said, the Governor’s Office, or at least his office, has not been officially informed about the teacher awardees.

Schwalbach is the governor’s point man on PSS matters.

“As far as I know the Governor’s Office has not been informed on who the teachers of the year are. They may have done it but we’re not aware of it,” said Schwalbach.

Under the Governor’s Education Initiative, the governor gives away $5,000 cash to the Teacher of the Year awardee, $3,000 to the first runner-up, and $1,000 to the second runner-up.

The 2005 Teacher of Year is Charlotte Camacho of Gregorio T. Camacho Elementary School.

William DeWitt of Saipan Southern High School was named first runner-up and Teresita Reyes of Oleai Elementary School was second runner-up.

Camacho will join fellow awardees across the nation in a national conference later this school year in Dallas, Texas.