THE administration of Mayor Antolin A. Oreta III has allotted more than P422 million for the construction of 11 school buildings and the repair, rehabilitation and renovation of old classrooms and other public-school facilities in different parts of Malabon City this year.
Based on the document supplied by the city government’s budget department, the buildings intended for the public-school education system has a total of 136 classrooms.
In a text message, Leonardo Padua, Oreta’s consultant for media and communication relations affairs, said Oreta has been allotting millions of pesos of city government funds for the construction of public-school buildings that came from the city taxpayers’ money because “education is one of the priority projects” of Oreta.
“Education is a priority project of Mayor Oreta. He believes that education is extremely important to the children because [education] will be their tool in attaining their dreams in life,” Padua explained in Filipino to BusinessMirror.
Padua’s assertion was articulated in the budget itself because the budget department’s record revealed that the P406,141,880.85 allotted budget for the public-school buildings for this year is higher by P217,617,827.08 compared to last year.
Aside from this, the Oreta administration also allotted P3,853,689.26 for the repair and rehabilitation of the old classrooms.
Another P12,913,382.60 was allotted for the repair, rehabilitation and renovation of “other school facilities.”
Thus, the total budget for the construction, repair, rehabilitation, and renovation of the public-school buildings and other school facilities for this year was P422,908,952.71.
Last year’s funds totalled P188,524,053.77 for the construction of seven buildings with 76 classrooms.
The repair, rehabilitation and renovation of other school facilities reached to P6,768,430.22, the same budget department’s document showed.
In 2016 the budget was P113,890,700 for seven buildings with 83 classrooms.
The Oreta administration did not allot funds for the repair, rehabilitation and renovation of old classrooms and other school facilities.
Padua noted that Oreta will continue to give highest importance to infrastructure projects for education since the city’s children need them.
