16 August 2007
LEGAZPI CITY—AT LEAST 80,000 police officers, or 75 percent of the police force in the country, donated a day’s wages to build two school buildings in Albay province and to conduct feeding programs and medical missions.
Dubbed “Tulong ng mga pulis para sa mga mag-aaral at komunidad,” the project was able to raise a total of P2.9 million from the voluntary contributions of policemen and women nationwide, said Senior Supt. Balligi Agnanayon Tira, Bicol police director in charge.
A policeman’s daily wage ranges from P300 to P1,200 depending on his rank and post.
Different PNP units in the National Capital Region and Bicol region donated an additional amount of P122,000.
Supt. Eliciar Bron, Bicol police spokesperson, said the project seeks to ease classroom shortage in public schools after the series of typhoons which ravaged Bicol late last year.
On Tuesday, police officials led by Director Emmanuel Carta of the Police Community Relations Division in Camp Crame, Quezon City held groundbreaking ceremonies at the Gogon Central School in Legazpi City and at the Guinobatan East Central School.
Bron added that funds donated by the cops also supported a feeding program and a medical and dental mission for the villagers and pupils.
In Tiwi, Albay, American company Chevron Geothermal Phils. Holdings Inc., which operates a 1,800-hectare geothermal plant, also donated typhoon-proof classrooms worth P5 million to three poor public schools here.
Designed to withstand 300-km-per-hour winds, the 8 meter by 7 meter classrooms were built in Barangay Cale and Misibis and at the host community of the Tiwi geothermal project in Barangay Libjo.
Libjo Elementary School principal Blandina Cuevillas said the project benefited 56 Grade 1 pupils who used to hold classes in makeshift classrooms and had to endure heat from the galvanized iron sheets.
“We are thankful some generous hearts donated this facility to us. Without this donation, we could not afford to rebuild what was destroyed by Supertyphoon Reming,” Cuevillas said.
She added they could not rely on government calamity funds which hardly reached their town.
In Cale Elementary School, principal Nelie Cope said the school library will be transferred to one of the classrooms donated by Chevron.
“It will be better to store our books there since it is storm-proof. During the typhoons, all our reading materials and textbooks were either damaged or destroyed,” Cope said.
The reconstruction program was done in partnership with the Aquinas University Foundation as the project implementor, Tiwi local government unit, Department of Education, and Ayala Foundation USA.
The DepEd was allotted P1.3 billion under the Calamity Assistance Emergency Response (Care) fund for the repair and reconstruction of school buildings in the six Bicol provinces. Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon
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