FILE PHOTO Residents in Clarin, Bohol, display makeshift signs by the roadside to ask for food, water and housing materials as help comes in trickles a week after Typhoon “Odette” (international name: Rai) ravaged the island in Central Visayas. —LEO UDTOHAN
CEBU CITY — Despite the delays, about 4,000 of the 5,000 classrooms damaged by Typhoon “Odette” (international name: Rai) in Central Visayas are ready to use.
Dr. Salustiano Jimenez, director of the Department of Education in Central Visayas (DepEd-7), thanked the local governments and non-government organizations for the “Bayanihan spirit” in making sure students throughout the region will have enough classrooms.
“We also got help from the central office with Education Secretary Sara (Duterte) always on the go and always following up for updates on the repairs,” he said in an interview on Dec. 7.
Jimenez said the delay in the repairs started in June because of the election ban.
He said about 1,000 classrooms in the region are still being repaired.
Odette, which devastated parts of the Visayas on Dec. 16, 2021, left P10 billion in damage to school buildings and instructional materials in Central Visayas.
Also damaged were six million modules, computers, printers, and photocopiers in the different schools in the region.
In Cebu, provincial officials will commemorate the first anniversary of Odette through a “One Cebu Island” Christmas light-up ceremony at the Cebu provincial capitol.
“We do not want to commemorate or dwell upon the misery and the hardship that we went through (due to Odette). We wish that on the 16th of December, we will send out a message of hope and unity,” Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia explained.
Aside from provincial officials, the ceremony will include all 50 mayors of the component towns and cities of Cebu and the independent cities of Cebu, Mandaue, and Lapu-Lapu.
Garcia said the Christmas lights-up ceremony will be anchored on the theme “In unity, there is hope, and when we have hope, we can unite.”
Odette left more than 90 people dead and over P1 billion damage in infrastructure in Cebu.
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