Whining stops, classrooms rise

For months now, the Compostela Valley government has been constructing school buildings in areas where the perennial lack of classrooms hounds students instead of just whining about it.

To prove that the program—dubbed “Bayanihan sa Paaralan”—was not just for show, Gov. Arturo Uy announced that the provincial government recently completed several buildings under the program’s second phase.

On Nov. 8 and 9, new school buildings were formally turned over to officials and residents of the villages of Longganapan, San Antonio, Kaligutan and Kapatagan in Laak town. The villages got nine classrooms.

The classrooms were built from donated materials, including lumber from logs earlier seized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“The newly built classrooms are complete with blackboard, teacher’s table and chairs—kiddie chairs for elementary and armchairs for high school,” Uy said.

The armchairs and tables that are being distributed to the newly built schools and other schools needing them came from the city government of Tagum, which has been building them since last year.

The beauty of the program, which was patterned after the Gawad Kalinga system, Uy said, was that the school buildings were being constructed with the help of volunteers.

This way, he said the cost of each building was much cheaper.

Uy also credited the help of the province’s partners, the local governments of Compostela Valley towns and Tagum City, the Department of Education, DENR, Army, police and other agencies for the success of the school building program.

Luciano Rivera, one of the recent volunteers, admitted that he was skeptical about the program at first.

“But when I saw that everybody was serious and had completed constructing a building in just 14 days, I was overwhelmed,” he said.

“This convinced me to help,” he added.

Lorenzo Ingay, a resident of Barangay San Antonio said the result of the program was a testament that just whining about problems won’t do any good.

“Cooperation would solve any problem,” he said.

Uy agreed by saying that the lack of classrooms has united the people of Compostela Valley to pitch in whatever they can so that students would learn well.

“The energy of the volunteers during the construction was amazing,” he said.

For Laak Mayor Reynaldo Navarro, the spirit of bayanihan for the common good of the people even traverses politics.

“It is very gratifying when you see people of all ages and beliefs helping each other put up something for people they were not even related to,” Navarro said.

The school building program started from a simple question of what should be done with confiscated logs that only rot in government impounding stations.

The initial move was to turn them into armchairs desks and distribute the finished products in the provinces of Compostela Valley and Davao del Norte.

The city government of Tagum, under Mayor Rey Uy, was tasked with fabricating the desks and chairs under an agreement.

During the distribution of the desks and armchairs in Compostela Valley, Uy said a larger problem had been uncovered, the lack of classrooms.

So the idea of a province-wide school building program, in partnership with other government agencies, private entities and volunteers, started.

Believing that quality education would also mean provision of a comfortable place for everyday classes, Uy said officials formally launched the “Kalinga sa Kabataan, Bayanihan sa Paaralan” program this year.

The first phase of the program covered the towns of Maragusan, Maco and Pantukan, where school buildings were also constructed in October.

“More will be put up,” Uy said then.