President Duterte on Friday tasked the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council
to look into the construction of durable structures that will be used solely for evacuation purposes.
Duterte issued the order during the post-disaster assessment briefing in Camarines after Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año said that one of their priorities would be the construction
of local evacuation centers.
According to Duterte, this was not the first time that the issue was raised. He noted how classes of students are disturbed because schools are being used as refuge for those affected by calamities.
“Every typhoon, calamity that would need the evacuation of people, the public schools really suffer. And also it disturbs the system. It causes an aberration rather in the schooling of children,” Duterte said.
The President tasked NDRRMC Executive Director Eduardo del Rosario to assign someone to look into it since he was already busy with the rehabilitation of Marawi City from the war in 2017.
“In the matter of building some structure to accommodate evacuees, maybe Gen. Del Rosario can give us a blueprint of that in about…Since you are here and you can go around and study,” he said.
“But it has to be a durable one, semento. But this can only be used for evacuation purposes and to keep the people safe and not to disturb the resumption of the governmental functions that we have, the ministrant schooling and everything,” he added.
Following the onslaught of typhoon “Ompong” (international name “Mangkhut”) in September last year, Duterte agreed with Education Secretary Leonor Briones that the education of students is compromised whenever their classrooms are used as shelter for evacuees.
The President reiterated his concern about students having a hard time catching up with their studies whenever schools are used as evacuation centers. He also agreed with Briones that children are exposed to greater risks when they have to make do with temporary learning shelters.
“The longer they stay in the school, the longer would be the disturbance of the education of the children,” Duterte said. (Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos)
