Cebu City, Philippines—Central Visayas has 478 delegates combined in two Department of Education (DepEd) events, which are the National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) and National Festival of Talents (NFOT) held in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan Valley and Ilagan City, Isabela, respectively.
DepEd-7 information officer Amaryllis Villarmia told CDN Digital that 108 delegates are representing the region in the NFOT while 370 representatives are in the NSPC.
The NSPC and NFOT are the only events that were permitted by DepEd to pursue, amid the threat of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Read: DepEd cancels all extracurricular events except for 2
Others, like the Central Visayas Regional Athletics Association (CVIRAA) meet in Dumaguete, were cancelled.
Read: School heads urged: Put CVIRAA athletes’ safety first
“Since nakapalit naman sila sa ilang tickets and some of our representatives are already in the venue,” Villarmia said.
The activities for the NSPC and NFOT started Monday, March 9, 2020, and will end on March 13, 2020.
The NFOT events included the Technolympics for Technical-Vocational-Livelihood Education, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Entrepreneurship; Sining Tanghalan, Nationwide Song Writing and Choral Group, National Pambansang Tagisan ng Talento sa Filipino; and Special Program in the Foreign Language (Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Arabic, Braille and sign languages).
Meanwhile, NSPC delegates will compete in group categories, which consist of radio and TV scriptwriting and broadcasting, collaborative desktop publishing, and online publishing.
The education department will also adjudge during the sessions outstanding campus journalists and school paper advisers from the country’s 17 regions.
Dubbed as the “Olympics of campus journalism,” NSPC is organized annually by DepEd in pursuant to Republic Act 7079 or the Campus Journalism Act of 1991.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones issued DepEd Memorandum no. 034, s. 2020, which sets the fifth policy of DepEd Task Force Covid-19.
The memorandum postpones different national and regional activities of the agency which entails the gathering of students and teachers, including the CVIRAA meet, which was set to be held on March 21-28, 2020. /bmjo