Makeshift classrooms greet Tacloban relocation learners

TACLOBAN CITY, May 4 -- Grade 6 learner Mary Joy Metila, 12, has to endure heat inside a makeshift classroom on her first day of school in a new campus away from their old home.

The girl, who dreamed of becoming a physician someday, shares a room with 30 other sweat-soaked children, whose families just moved to Villa Sofia housing project intended for super typhoon “Yolanda” survivors settled in the city’s coastal communities badly hit by the 2013 disaster.

This school year, Mary Joy’s parents decided to transfer her to Villa Sofia Elementary School in rural Tagpuro village from San Fernando Elementary School located along the city’s major thoroughfare.

“It’s hot here and the environment is completely different, but it’s alright since it is very inconvenient to wake up early and take a long jeepney ride to my old school,” the girl shared.

Villa Sofia Elementary School is the newest campus in the typhoon-hit city. Since last month, workers rushed to build eight temporary learning spaces (TLS) for 187 children.

Mary Joy is just one of the estimated 3,500 children who attended classes in 88 TLS built near six resettlement sites in the northern part of the city.

School principal Edever Zanoria said they are working to improve the ventilation of makeshift rooms made up of coconut lumber, plywood, and corrugated iron sheets.

Due to shortage of walling materials, the room is partly exposed to sunlight early morning and late in the afternoon. The floor, which was not concreted, also raises concern that it might become muddy during rainy days.

“There’s a lot of improvements here in the past two weeks. We have been getting donations from our stakeholders for to be able to install electric fans and ceilings since,” Zanoria said.

Department of Education Tacloban division chief Thelma Quitalig hopes that many learners will transfer to permanent classrooms before the year ends.

As of this week, only two projects are ongoing with a combined cost of PHP118.37 million. These are three-storey buildings at the Ridge View Park Integrated School in Cabalawan village.

“It will mainly depend on the speed of construction by the Department of Public Works and Highways. We understand that it is very challenging to find sites suitable for multi-storey school buildings,” Quitalig said.

Aside from Villa Sofia and Ridge View, the education department has been maintaining makeshift rooms for North Hill Arbour, Greendale Residences, and New Hope Village housing projects.

Quitalig hopes that their main office will download the budget for new building and find new sites for buildings originally intended in some areas, which failed the soil stability test for three-storey school buildings.

The city needs 656 new classrooms for new campuses and additional 40 rooms for existing schools.

The government aims to move more than 14,000 typhoon-hit families to northern relocation sites. 

About 10,000 families have been transferred to their new homes, away from threats of storm surges. (SQM/PNA)