Education Secretary Armin Luistro. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Students in the typhoon-ravaged areas of Mindanao will have to use tents until their classrooms are fixed, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said Thursday.
He said that this would be a temporary setup after Typhoon “Pablo” damaged 800 classrooms.
“The majority here or all of them have lost their roofs,” Luistro said in a radio interview. “There are some that have even lost their posts.”
The location of new schools to be constructed would be studied carefully to put them out of harm’s way during typhoons, he said.
Luistro also said students would undergo stress debriefing before they go back to school in January.
The Department of Education said that 230 schools were still being used as evacuation centers by 31,100 families.
Luistro said the department was scrapping its Christmas party so it could use the money for typhoon relief—a measure resorted to by other government agencies, such as the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
“DBM officials and employees collectively decided that it would be best to forgo the Christmas party this year and, instead, direct all our extra funds—whether from the agency budget or from their own pockets—for the benefit of Pablo’s victims,” Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said.
“Let us focus on the essential programs and services,” Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman told her staff.
The Philippine National Police has done the same thing and, in addition, announced that it would raise P7.7 million for the typhoon victims.
“After due consultation with all the 148,00 rank and file members of the PNP, we all decided that each of us will donate P50, which will be deducted from our monthly salary,” said outgoing PNP Director General Nicanor Bartolome. He said 6,000 nonuniformed PNP personnel also pledged to contribute P50 each.
“This is our own little way of helping our countrymen in Mindanao,” Bartolome said. With reports from Kristine Felisse Mangunay, Marlon Ramos, Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. and Ronnel W. Domingo