TACLOBAN CITY—At least 20 schools were damaged in the strong earthquake that rocked Leyte province last Thursday, affecting the studies of over 10,000 pupils in the province’s elementary and high schools.
Leyte Division Superintendent Ronilo Al Firmo said damaged were 18 schools from the towns of Kananga, Barugo, Jaro, Inopacan, San Isidro, Merida and Albuera. Two schools were also reported damaged in Ormoc that are under the Ormoc City division.
Firmo said that of these schools, 10 were totally damaged and may no longer be safe for classes. He added those with totally damaged schools will look for excess classrooms in the nearest school to hold their classes while those with partially damaged schools will have a shifting of classes to avoid a total disruption of the students’ schooling.
In a Cabinet meeting on Monday in Ormoc City, Firmo requested the Department of Education to allocate P120 million for the immediate repair and rehabilitation of damaged school buildings.
Classes in elementary and high schools in Tacloban and Ormoc City, and the towns of Alang-Alang, Jaro, Carigara, Capoocan and Kananga were suspended on Monday and Tuesday after a strong aftershock of magnitude 5.4 occurred on Monday morning.
Firmo said the decision to suspend classes in each municipality will be left to the discretion of the local chief executive based on their assessment of the situation.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology conducted an on-site inspection to check the possibility of any school along the fault line where the strong earthquake originated, but found there was none so there was no need to transfer to a different school.
Edgar Posadas, regional director of the Office of Civil Defense in Eastern Visayas, recommended to the DepEd for a more thorough investigation on the structural integrity of school buildings as an aftermath of the quake.