Aboitiz vows to build, repair 200 classrooms hit by ‘Yolanda’

Young typhoon survivors wait for their teacher as they attend school at typhoon-ravaged Tolosa town, Leyte province, on Monday, Dec. 9, 2013. Though many of the school buildings are gone, classes in most public schools in the Eastern Visayas have resumed, three weeks after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” devastated the region on Nov. 8. AP FILE PHOTO/AARON FAVILA

MANILA, Philippines—At least 200 classrooms will rise or be rebuilt in northern Cebu after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” ravaged the area in November last year.

Aboitiz Foundation said it would start repair work next month on 130 classrooms in 28 schools in Bogo City and San Remigio town which were damaged by the killer storm. In addition, 70 new classrooms will be built. The schools cater to some 13,000 students.

In all of northern Cebu, a total of 1,308 public school buildings were damaged, affecting over 29,000 elementary and high school students.

One of the affected schools, Bogo Central School III, today holds classes even if its classrooms have no roof.

Aboitiz Foundation pledged its assistance to the 28 schools.

“We are prioritizing those that have from partial to heavy damage—as opposed to the buildings that are totally damaged—since these are the ones that could be used immediately,” said Aboitiz Foundation EVP and COO Sonny Carpio in a statement.

Carpio said the repairs and new constructions would take up to the last quarter of the year.

He added that P140 million of the P203 million the foundation raised last year for post-Yolanda rehabilitation would be allocated to the schools project in northern Cebu.

Last month, the Department of Education said private donors had committed to repair 3,467 of the 17,620 damaged classrooms in the Yolanda-devastated areas of the Visayas and Palawan.

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