New bldg for Yolanda-hit school in San Remigio

CEBU, Philippines - Some students who survived the super typhoon Yolanda have now been continuing their formal school learning inside new and improved classrooms through the help of the private sector.

Such is the case of Argawanon Integrated School in San Remigio which formally received yesterday a six-classroom “disaster-resilient” building from Aboitiz Foundation.

School principal Macario Ricarte, Jr. shared they were not supposed to be one of the recipient schools of the sponsoring private group, but he bravely asked them to inspect their campus and assess if they would qualify.

“They visited the school around January and right after the assessment, we were told that we qualified. We proposed our garden area for the site of the building and they agreed. At first they wanted to demolish an existing building but we opposed it and proposed another site,” Ricarte said.

The building will be occupied by grades 4, 5, and 6 each with two sections.

The third section of grade 6 stays at one of the older buildings.

Ricarte noted that their enrollment increased compared to last year when Yolanda struck after students from other barangays transferred to their campus.

With this, he finds the additional classrooms very helpful, though he admits to still fall short in terms of the ratio on facility and students.

The number of classrooms at 15 is enough to accommodate over 800 elementary students but the two classrooms are obviously not sufficient for their high school, Ricarte said, adding they need at least three more.

“We don’t even have a separate library. Our computer room is at the same time our library, faculty room,” he said.

Apart from the intervention of Aboitiz Foundation, the school received P30,000 from the Department of Education provincial division office.

Also, they tapped a portion of the schools maintenance and operational expenses specifically around P9,000 of the total P15,900 for a month.

The total MOOE has to be spent for teaching materials and feeding of students following the typhoon.

The school also received galvanized iron sheets from the local government unit for the immediate repair of damaged classrooms.

Recognizing that the government alone cannot fix the damage caused by super typhoon Yolanda, the DepEd admitted that it is the private sector which is filling the gap.

DepEd undersecretary Mario Deriquito yesterday said this as he attended the turnover of more than 200 classrooms for Bogo City and San Remigio from Aboitiz Foundation.

“After Yolanda, we lost over 2,000 classrooms both partially and totally damaged. Through this, we found valuable allies in the private sector,” said Derequito.

Aboitiz Foundation Inc.  chairman Erramon Aboitiz said they have exceeded their initial commitment of 200 classrooms for northern Cebu as they have yesterday turned over a total of 227 classrooms for both San Remigio and Bogo City good for 15,000 students.

AFI has raised a total of P264 million in its #BangonVisayas campaign and P194 million was spent for classroom repair and reconstruction while the remainder was used for relief efforts.  Repair of 25 damaged classrooms and construction of new classrooms in Medellin, Daanbantayan and Borbon is ongoing, still under AFI.

On behalf of Office of Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery Secretary Panfilo Lacson, who initially confirmed but later backed out, Undersecretary Danilo Antonio graced the turnover.

Antonio said his superior did not make it due to some “pressing matters in Manila,” to which he did not specify.  (FREEMAN)