MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—A principal of a school in Mandaue City is reminding parents to secure their children’s learning modules during this rainy season.
This after modules of 32 students got soaked in flood waters cause by heavy rains last Sunday, October 4, 2020, in barangay Paknaan here.
Read: Boy hurt; over 400 houses flooded in Mandaue City
“Sa wala pa nagdistribute sa modules, naa gyud tay orientation, unsaon pag amping sa atong mga modules ug atong mga books. Sad to say naa gyuy 32 nga wala gyud na save,” said Dr. Mary Jean Codiñera, school principal of the Paknaan Elementary School.
(Even before the distribution of the modules, we already had an orientation [with parents] on how to take care of the modules and the books. Sad to say, there were still 32 that weren’t saved.)
The school has already reprinted the modules for the affected students.
The parents of those who lost the modules to flood waters got the replacements on Tuesday, October 6, while others were set to get them on Wednesday, October 7.
“We should take care of the modules because it’s the government who spent for this,” she added.
Read: DepEd-7 appeals: Stop criticizing learning modules with errors on social media
Dr. Nimfa Bongo, Department of Education (DepEd) Mandaue schools division superintendent, said that the incident did not really affect the budget for the second quarter. That’s why they are reminding parents to take care of the modules because if incidents like this should happen again, it may take a toll on the budget later on.
“Maka affect gyud, kay kaning uban nga bond papers for lain pod nga purpose ba, amo nalang gihatag nila,” said Bongo.
([The budget] will really be affected because these bond papers which should have been used for other purposes will be used for the replacements instead.)
But Codiñera stressed that even if it is important to keep the modules safe, the lives of the students and their parents are still of utmost importance.
“Maningkamot ta nga atong i-save ang mga modules pero kung dili na gyud, atong unahon ang atong kinabuhi, especially sa atong mga kabataan,” she said.
(Let’s try to save the modules in times of calamities but we should priorotize lives, especially that of our youth.)
The Paknaan school has 3,601 students enrolled this year, a bit lower than last school year’s 3,629.
/bmjo