Cerelo Linao, husband of teacher Amelia Linao, repairs the kindergarten classroom of his wife in Umapad Elementary School, which has been damaged by termites and typhoon Odette. | Mary Rose Sagarino
MANDAUE CITY, Philippines — Unlike other schools where most parents of the students help to clean or fix things in a room during a Brigada Eskwela, in one of the schools of Mandaue City, the teacher’s husband is the one repairing his wife’s classroom.
Cerelo Linao, husband of Amelia Linao who is the kindergarten teacher at the Umapad Elementary School here, is repairing his wife’s classroom that was damaged by termites and Typhoon Odette.
Amelia said the repairs were needed because a few of the school’s classrooms were damaged by the typhoon and the opening of classes was fast approaching.
“Gamiton gyud ni kay kuwang man ang classrooms. Akoang husband ang nagbrigada para makasave-save sad, ang gipalit sa school kay ang dapat ra,” said Amelia.
(This [the classroom] will be used because we lack classrooms. My husband is doing the brigada so that we can save because what the school bought was just the materials for the repairs.)
The nationwide Brigada Eskwela 2022 was launched by the Department of Education on August 1.
Umapad Elementary School will implement limited face-to-face lectures starting on August 22.
Karen Bolok, school principal, said because of the problem with the classrooms, they would be implementing emergency classes where they would conduct two sessions.
“Ipagamit nako kani’ng e-classroom even though masudlan siya og tubig kay magamit pa man sad gihapon. Naa tay first and second session para ma-accommodate tanan” said Bolok.
(We will use this e-classroom eventhough water will enter the room because it can still be used. There will be a first and second session so that we can accommodate all students.)
Bolok said though that city government had already inspected the damaged facilities and promised to repair it.
Currently, over 700 students have already enrolled. The school had a population of 994 last school year.
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