Classes in flood-prone Sapangdaku Elementary School to resume in barangay hall

Parents carry their children passing the Subandaku river after the Sapangdaku Elementary school announced that they were closed temporarily following the frequent flood.(CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama yesterday ordered the closure of Sapangdaku Elementary School, a frequent target of flooding during the rainy season with its location near a river.

The barangay captain declared the area where the school sits under a state of calamity.

“Sapangdaku Elementary School will be handled as if we are being hit by an earthquake or (supertyphoon) Yolanda. Therefore it can no longer be used as a school. It should not be operational anymore,” the mayor said in a press conference yesterday.

Rama gave the order after meeting with city engineers and officials of the Department of Education.

Classes will remain suspended until temporary classrooms are set up.

School principal Ma Elgie Englis told CDN that classes will resume by Wednesday at the barangay hall of Sapangdaku.

“We only need eight classrooms for our classes. The city government already informed us that they will be sending funds to the barangay since the officials will be displaced and now be using vans as their temporary offices,” said Englis.

Sapangdaku barangay captain Lorna Damalerio said they only have five rooms to spare in the barangay hall which could accommodate Grade 1 to 5 classes.

She said they will have to look for other areas to conduct classes for around 500 students.
Cebu City Schools superintendent Rhea Mar Angtud said parents can transfer their children to other schools.

Classes in another landslide-prone school, the Busay Elementary School, will go on, but the facility will have to be inspected first.

“The mayor’s order was to have the area checked by a contractor and see if the classrooms need retrofitting or not,” she said.

Ester Cubero of the Local School Board said they will be inspecting the school with Pericles “Ricky” Dakay, an engineer.

“We have been looking for a relocation site within barangay Busay but haven’t found any. All the lots in the barangay are unstable,” she said.

A 2007 advisory from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) listed Busay Elementary School as sitting on land that has a “high risk” of landslides.

Parent’s ordeal

Almost all classrooms at Sapangdaku Elementary School were deserted at 9 a.m. on the second Monday of the new schoolyear.

Near one classroom 6-year-old Grade 1 pupil, Krisvy Mae Tabornal sat on a block. Classes were cancelled but she continued to practice writing her name on a piece of paper while waiting for her mother to fetch her.

Ivy Tabornal, 26, said attending to her daughters is no easy task. Aside from Krisvy, a younger daughter, Sarah, attends kindergarten classes at Sapangdaku which is just a few meters away from the river in an upper barangay in Guadalupe.

“Wala man gud lain mukuha nilang duha. Usahay akoang ibilin si Jejomar sa silingan labi na basta magdali ko magkuha sa duha kung kusog ang ulan kay mutaas unya ang tubig,” said Tabornal who was cras cradling her youngest, five-month old baby, Jejomar.

(There’s nobody else to fetch them. Sometimes, I leave Jejomar with our neighbor as I had to rush to get my daughters especially when there’s a downpour.)

Related Stories:

Drainage work to start on A.S. Fortuna Street

Mega Cebu planners turn to congressmen