Public urged to report schools damaged by ‘Glenda’

Education Secretary Armin Luistro. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Because of the widespread power outages and communication line problems, the Department of Education has been having problems in determining the damage wrought by Typhoon “Glenda” (international name: Rammasun) to schools in the country.

This has compelled Education Secretary Armin Luistro to ask the public’s help in reporting devastations in schools.

“We are asking the public, especially those who are social media savvy citizens and media to help in reporting school damage by sending photos or relevant information,” Bro. Armin Luistro, DepEd Secretary said in a televised press conference on Thursday.

The public may send their information to DepEd’s Twitter account at @DepEd_PH and by email at [email protected].

“We’d like the public to join. This really helps us in trying to bridge the information gap to make better or realistic decisions,” he added.

Assistant Secretary Reynaldo Laguda backed Luistro, saying that the participation of the public will help them to become more transparent.

“Not only does it validate and get information, it also helps us to be more transparent… It’s a big help that we get inputs from general public, students, teachers, or people within the community,” he said.

The DepEd chief also asked their personnel to report their status to their respective superiors.

“Our personnel may be affected… So we’d like to request that all DepEd personnel to report their status and report for duty so we know who is safe and who needs assistance,” he said.

Luistro said that as of 8 a.m. Thursday, 47 percent of affected school divisions resumed classes, or 54 out of 115 divisions. There were a total of 12 regions affected: Cordillera Administrative Region; Caraga; Ilocos; Cagayan; Central Luzon; Calabarzon; Mimaropa; Bicol; Western Visayas; Central Visayas; Eastern Visayas; and National Capital Region.

The 115 divisions comprise of about 25,000 schools.

Data from DepEd showed that 187 schools were used as evacuation centers, but it still has to assess whether they are still being used.

“If you will compare to “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan), the affected areas are not that vast. It took us one week to resume classes at that time,” Luistro said.

No casualties have been reported in schools so far.

“Region IV-A [Calabarzon] has not resumed classes. Looking at the data, they were probably gravely affected,” he also said.

Luistro said they will ask schools to submit a rapid damage assessment in order to have a quick count of damaged rooms and the number that needs repair.

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