ORMOC CITY, May 8 --An upland village in this city
is happy to receive new classrooms through the ongoing PHL-US Balikatan
Exercise 2017 focused on rebuilding facilities damaged by 2013 super typhoon
Yolanda.
Villager Betty Ann Catapon said the two new
classrooms inside the Don Carlos Rivilla Elementary School in Boroc village
here would help in decongesting the classrooms.
The elementary school has more than 400 enrollees
from kindergarten to Grade 6 in the last academic year. To date, a group of 60
children share a single room or 20 more than the ideal number for conducive
learning.
The school provides education to children from
Boroc and its nine sub-villages. Boroc is more than three kilometers away from
the national road and more than five kilometers away from the city’s downtown.
Similar project will also rise in the campus of
nearby Margen Elementary School. Principal Elvira de Leon said that the
construction of classrooms was timely for the opening of the school year.
At least four classrooms were badly destroyed by
super typhoon Yolanda on November 8, 2013, prompting students to use makeshift
classrooms for their classes.
“This is timely because this coming school year,
four new teachers will be assigned in this school,” according to De Leon.
Margen campus has 627 registered students.
De Leon expressed hope that the need for chairs and
learning materials would also be addressed after the turn-over of the
classrooms.
From the usual war games since 2000, Balikatan
Exercise 2017 has shifted to humanitarian assistance to cope with challenges
that the country are facing and to prepare the US Forces and the Philippine
Army to response during natural calamities and disaster, to carry out delivery
of humanitarian aid and enhancing counter-terrorism capabilities.
“Balikatan gives us opportunities to share ideas,
to learn from each other, to desire many more years of close relationship and
partnership,” said Commander Robert Christian, head of US Armed Forces
community relations team.
“We have a long history of working together for our
common good, it will be our military and your military and people that we will
be working together in times of disaster which is why we are doing this today,”
Christian told reporters on Monday.
US Armed Forces joining the Balikatan Exercise 2017
are personnel from the US Air Force, Navy, Marines, Infantry and Seabees or the
US Naval Construction Forces. Most of them are stationed in Okinawa, Japan.
Their counterparts from the Armed Forces of the
Philippines are personnel from the 546th and the 543rd Engineering Construction
Battalion and the Army Reserve Command.
The US troops are also conducting humanitarian
civic assistance in selected villages covered by military humanitarian
exercise.
Lt. Col. George Domingo of the Philippine Army 8th
Infantry Division said the holding of Balikatan Exercise in Eastern Visayas was
not only a good experience for soldiers assigned in the region, but also for
people always facing threats of natural disaster.
“This is an exercise for our soldiers and the US
troops to exchange knowledge in disaster preparation and for us to enhance more
our working relationship with other foreign military forces,” Domingo added.
Balikatan Exercise 2017 in Eastern Visayas started
early April and will end on May 18 after the turn-over of the constructed
classroom to recipient schools.
(Roel T. Amazona/PNA)
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