‘Tent cities’ to rise for Laguna evacuees

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—The Philippine Red Cross is rolling out its large rub hall tents—similar to what are being used by hospitals and relief agencies, to decongest classrooms being used as shelters for flood victims in this province.

The “tent cities” may be mounted in three elementary schools in Cabuyao City, three in Biñan City, and one in Los Baños, provincial board member and Red Cross volunteer Neil Nocon said on Thursday.

Another would rise from a two-hectare government lot by the Red Cross at Marianville Subdivision in Barangay Puypuy in Bay town.

Edgardo Militante, education program supervisor of the Department of Education in Laguna, said 60 schools (49 elementary and 11 secondary) in Laguna, mostly public schools, were still being used as evacuation centers for around 7,790 families.

Thirty-six private and public schools in Laguna have remained under water—28 elementary and eight secondary schools.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development said 323,608 people were still living in evacuation centers and homes submerged in floodwaters a month after monsoon rains pummeled the province.

Nocon said the tents would come from the Red Cross national headquarters, which has around 200 rub hall tents on standby.

The large-sized tents were ones used as a makeshift hospital during the 2008 typhoid outbreak in Calamba City. “The tents were turned into a 100-bed hospital, even larger than one hospital in Calamba City at that time,” Nocon said.

Red Cross provincial chapter administrator Rudelly Cabutin said the tents would be put up next week after the list of sites is finalized.

“The condition (of the schools) varies. There are some where the buildings are already dry but the school grounds are still flooded, so we have to find another location,” Cabutin said

Earlier, Red Cross chair Richard Gordon made the rounds of the evacuation centers in Laguna and asked officials of the Department of Education to identify sites for the “tent cities.”

“While the attention of relief operations is focused on distributing food (or) clothes, we also have to consider that classes are disrupted with the evacuees still inside the school buildings,” Nocon said.

He said Gordon had also noticed that a public market turned into an evacuation center in Calamba was a fire hazard because curtains were used to separate spaces for families.

The provincial and local governments will have to provide for electricity, water and comfort rooms in the “tent cities.”

According to Laguna’s social welfare department, 19,336 families (81,185 people) had been staying in more than 200 evacuation centers as of Sept. 4.

Schools affected by the prolonged floods have adopted strategies to ensure that classes would continue, Militante said. The measures fall under the Modified In-School and Out-School Approach (Misosa), he said.

“Extra efforts have to be made to ensure that good quality education is maintained,” he said.

Several schools in Siniloan, he said, conduct their classes by shifts. A number of students attend classes in the morning from Monday to Wednesday while others do so in the afternoon.