IPAD SHOTS UN humanitarian coordinator in the Philippines, Jacqui Badcock, (right) visits a Muslim community along the Mandulog River in Iligan City on Monday. The Mandulog village lies devastated after rampaging floodwaters carrying logs slammed the community at the height of Tropical storm “Sendong” on Dec. 17. At left, children take shelter from the rain during the relief operations conducted by the UN team. RICHEL UMEL/INQUIRER MINDANAO
CAGAYAN DE ORO—“Where are Jill Ann Rose Uriarte and Kent Daniel ‘KD’ Ranalan?” is one question Grade 1 teacher Marilou Gambutan will have a hard time answering.
Jill Ann and KD, Gambutan’s pupils at the City Central School, died when rampaging floodwaters wiped out their neighborhood in Sitio (sub village) Cala-Cala in Barangay (village) Macasandig here two weeks ago.
“It is very difficult to tell the students that KD and Jill Ann won’t be coming back for good,” said Gambutan, almost in tears.
“He used to make simple comments that he missed his mama so much,” Gambutan said of KD whose mother is an overseas Filipino worker.
Jill Ann was also special for Gambutan. “I would change her clothes when she was sweating.”
After the floods, Gambutan’s husband accompanied Jill Ann’s parents in searching for her. “They went to Camiguin Island, to Iligan and every town in between Iligan and Camiguin. They never found her,” she said.
Gambutan said that some of her pupils had called her up and asked if KD and Jill Ann had been found. “I cannot tell them. I just turned off my phone,” she said.
Edna Homillada, another teacher at the City Central School, also lost a Grade 1 pupil, Shamia Daclag, whose house in Isla de Oro was swept away by the flood.
Most amiable
Homillada said she would find it hard to tell her students that one of the class’ most amiable and behaved students was gone. “Shamia is now in the hands of God, that is the best consolation we can have,” the teacher said.
Homillada said that when the children started asking questions, she would have to tell them gradually.
In Iligan City, education officials expect fewer children going back to school today.
Living elsewhere
Apart from those who left the city with their parents to seek refuge in the homes of relatives, some of the children and their families may have moved to villages that are now far from the school where they used to attend classes.
Others died in the flooding.
“Expectedly, some may have settled with relatives outside of the city,” said Dr. Alice Engracia-Anghay, education supervisor and communication officer of the Department of Education (DepEd)-Iligan Division.
Anghay said the resumption of classes after a long Yuletide break would be an opportunity for DepEd to learn about the whereabouts of schoolchildren.
Classes resume on January 3 in schools spared from the floods and not used as evacuation centers.
Learning tents
However, two-hour informal classes in “learning tents” will be held in eight schools, which host flood evacuees, said Anghay.
“The education department has decided not to displace the evacuees for now. We hope to provide them a sense of normalcy,” she added.
The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Actions (Ocha) has estimated that some 123,200 school children were among those affected by the disaster in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro cities alone.
The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund said that children accounted for half of the 250,000 people needing humanitarian aid.
Susan Perante, officer in charge of the Ubaldo Laya Elementary School in Iligan, suggested that makeshift structures could be erected in remaining open spaces of the schools-cum-evacuation centers.
These can serve as temporary lounging areas for the evacuees as they vacate the classrooms. Perante proposed that the makeshift structures be made of coconut lumber with tarpaulin as roofing material.
Stress debriefing
Students of the biggest public elementary school in Cagayan de Oro will begin today a week-long psycho-social stress debriefing to be facilitated by Xavier University psychologists.
But Shirley Merida, principal of the West City Central School in Barangay Carmen, said the students would have to undergo sessions in the school’s covered court as its 96 classrooms were still being occupied by evacuees.
West City Central School has a total of 5,318 elementary students.
Merida said the school planned to hold the sessions and regular classes next week, in learning tents beside the covered court if the families staying in the covered court were unable to move by Tuesday.
Merida said the school had requested the city government to provide sacks for the students to sit on. There will be no tables or chairs in the “learning tents” so these can accommodate more students.
Teacher lost 3 kids
Of the 5,318 students, 678 have lost their notebooks, pencils, textbooks or school uniforms to the floods, according to Merida.
She said that of the school’s 140 teachers, 128 were also affected by the flood. Still, all, except one, will be in school today.
“I already met with the teachers and many will be able to report for work,” Merida said.
The teacher who asked to be excused from Tuesday’s reopening of classes lost three of her four children.