Almost two weeks ago, Typhoon Odette hit the Philippines which caused the loss of life and mass destruction in several provinces in Visayas and Mindanao.
Even schools were ravaged by Odette, leaving wet books, damaged learning materials, ruined classrooms and even death.
In a recorded press briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte aired on December 28, 2021, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said the agency recorded 1,086 totally damaged schools and 1,316 partially damaged schools.
Briones added P3.37 billion is needed to rebuild and repair 2,402 schools.
“In our estimates, because we want to recover, we want to build. We will need and beg for consideration as we will probably using a portion of the 2022 budget for rehabilitation,” the Education Secretary said.
In a report of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS) of DepEd received by DZUP Balita, 29,671 schools and 12,029,272 learners were affected. The report also shows that six schools in CARAGA Region were flooded.
In regions BARMM, CARAGA, IV-B, VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X, the education department estimates P3.256 million partial replacement cost for non-infrastructure damages alone. The said cost covers the damaged furniture, learning materials and computer sets. The data also notes 38 personnel, and 66 learners were injured, 2 learners missing, while 2 personnel and 7 learners died as of December 27. A total of 779 public schools are used as evacuation centers.
Facilitating the downloading of support funds for response interventions including in-kind and cash donations, distributing, activating Rapid Assessment of Damages Report (RADAr) and rendering 24/7 response cluster duty in the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) Virtual Emergency Operations Center (EOC) are only a few of the actions taken by the central office, according to the report. DZUP