Evacuees turn QC school into dump

MANILA, Philippines - Bagong Silangan Elementary School in Quezon City suspended classes yesterday in order to clean up the garbage and human waste left behind by evacuees, an official said yesterday.

Ronilo Alejo, the school’s disaster coordinator, told The STAR that refuse was scattered everywhere by more than 150 families who took shelter in the school, where around 9,600 students are enrolled this academic year. Classes will resume on Tuesday.

He said school and barangay officials requested fire trucks from the Bureau of Fire Protection to assist in the cleanup because mops and brooms could not completely remove the filth.

He said the Department of Health also sent personnel to help disinfect the area.

Alejo said evacuees also stole a teacher’s cassette player and an electric fan from the school. They recovered the cassette player from one of the evacuees, but have yet to identify who took the electric fan, he said.

Alejo said some books were also damaged because some evacuees used them as mats.

Barangay Bagong Silangan was one of the areas worst hit by floods in the city, with more than 1,000 families fleeing to evacuation centers set up in the area.

Alejo said their school has enough sanitary facilities to cater the needs of those who took shelter in the school.

 â€œIt was simply a case of lack of discipline,” he said in Filipino.

He urged residents who will use the school as an evacuation center in the future to maintain cleanliness in their designated areas.

Meanwhile, the Philippine National Police deployed almost 700 police officers to help maintain order in evacuation centers in Manila, Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela, Pasig and Mandaluyong, according to Senior Superintendent R-win Pagkalinawan of the PNP Disaster Response and Relief Task Group.

– With Cecille Suerte Felipe