Photo shows inundated areas in Bulacan, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija taken during the aerial inspection of President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos, Jr on September 26, 2022. Kj Rosales, PPA Pool
MANILA — The Department of Education said Tuesday it needs an estimated P112 million to repair schools damaged by Super Typhoon Karding.
Based on its initial assessment, the DepEd said 20 schools incurred damage from the powerful typhoon that ravaged parts of the main island Luzon last Sunday.
The schools come from the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley Region, Cordillera Administrative Region, Central Luzon, National Capital Region and Bicol Region.
As of Monday noon, 259 schools in the same six regions are still being used as evacuation centers, according to the DepEd, which recently mandated that schools can only be used as evacuation sites for 15 days.
Overall, the typhoon affected 21,509 schools and 12,174,549 students across Luzon, including in the Calabarzon and Mimaropa regions, the DepEd said.
"For the number of affected learners, kasama po dito 'yong mga may suspension of classes in their areas. Not neccesarily po na damaged 'yong schools nila," the department explained.
(For the number of affected learners, this includes those that had suspension of classes in their areas. This does not necessarily mean their schools were damaged.)
On Monday, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers urged the DepEd to "quickly fix" the damage left by Karding.
"Typhoon Karding has rendered more classrooms unusable, thereby further exacerbating classroom shortage," ACT Chairperson Vladimer Quetua said in a statement.
"We should get the schools back to normal operations at the soonest possible time. We hope that this will be done with the national government and the DepEd Central Office actively leading the efforts and providing the needed resources," Quetua said.
"We hope that these tasks will not just fall on the shoulders of school heads and our teachers as before, who have been so conveniently commanded by the highers-up to find ways on their own to resolve the problems on the ground," he added.
The DepEd is also still addressing damage from the magnitude 7 earthquake that rocked Luzon last July, and recent storms Agaton and Odette.
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