ORMOC CITY– Mayor Lucy Torres Gomez expressed her gratitude to the management of a shopping mall operating in the city for its cooperation in responding for a possible disaster that would strike the city.

On Thursday (Dec.7), Gomez, representing the city government, signed an agreement with the Robinsons Land Corporation for the establishment of a temporary evacuation site and a triage center located at the mall’s parking area.

“This partnership gives us assurance knowing that we are prepared and will survive should hard times come,” the city mayor said in her message after the signing of the agreement.

Under the agreement, the management of the shopping mall committed to designate 1,690 square meters of its parking lot for the setting up of temporary evacuation sites, a command center, and a triage area in the immediate aftermath of destructive calamity.

“We stand to support the development of the city in recognizing that disaster risk reduction and management is everyone’s responsibility,” Allan Anthony Armamento, operations director of the giant shopping mall, said.

A simulation exercise was conducted after the signing of the agreement participated by security personnel and a rescue team from the city government.

The simulation drill involved how to ‘rescue’ a bus carrying 34 student-athletes who attended a sports competition in Tacloban City and met a vehicular accident while it was on its way to Ormoc.

Responding to the accident, the rescue team has set up their command center at the parking space of the mall including tri-age, and medical response facility.

Meantime, Mayor Torres Gomez said that the city government is doing its best to address any possible disaster, especially cause by climate change, and secure the lives of its people, in particular.

“Here in Ormoc we will do all that we can, use all the resources that we have, with the skills set that we have, we will make sure that should the day come at least we know we won’t just surrender without given a fight,” she said.

One of the responses that the city government implement to protect its constituents against the effect of natural disasters and calamities is by ensuring that communities along danger zone are relocated in safer areas.

“We are in the process of identifying those who are located in the no-build zones and clearing up the no-build zones and then also making sure that they have resettlement areas,” Mayor Gomez added.

She also said a master plan identifying flood-prone areas across the city is now being conducted with the assistance of a Japanese entity with the output expected to be completed early this year.

Ormoc City has faced several natural calamities like the massive flooding in 1991 that killed at least 4,000 residents with about 2,500 reported missing, the super typhoon Yolanda in Nov 2013, and the magnitude 6.5 earthquake in July 2017.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA, LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)

Blame to 2-year closure of schools due to COVID-19

TACLOBAN CITY– About 5,209 students both in the elementary and secondary levels were identified to be ‘non-readers’ and ‘struggling learners’ by the schools division here.

And this big number of non-readers and struggling students is alarming, reason they have devised the needed intervention to at least address the ‘gap,’ Nilo Eder, the information officer of the Tacloban city schools division, said on Wednesday (Nov.6).

Based on their assessment, 79 students were identified to be non-readers or those who cannot read at all while 5,288 were classified as struggling learners or can but read but with difficulty.

Eder, however, did not say how many of the 5,288 students are in the elementary and secondary levels.

“We are conducting reading and numeracy assessments, like pre-assessments and post-assessments. This is how we identify the level of proficiency of our learners. The assessments led us in identifying the learning gaps. Correspondingly, we implement interventions to address learning gaps,” Eder said.

The intervention mostly involved a tutorial method for these students at the school level and another post-assessments are being done to determine the improvement of these students, he added.

The students identified as non-readers or struggling were from the 56 public schools in the city, both in the elementary and secondary levels.

“So far, there are significant improvements noted. However, there are still learners who need help. So we continue with our initiatives,” Eder said.

A Grade 1 teacher in one of the central schools in the city, said that out of her 25 students, almost half of them were having difficulty in reading.

“Teaching these learners is a struggle on my part as I have to give them special time and attention. So what I did was I asked my co-teacher to handle my learners who could now read as I give focus to these learners,” the teacher, who declined to be named, said.
And since she made these interventions, she is seeing some improvements in these non-reader learners, the teacher said.

Eder said that the pandemic due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that hit the country was the primary reason why this problem cropped up.

“It is a fact that the pandemic has really affected the quality of education. Thus, these learning gaps. It will take years to recover,” he said.

“Of course, we are not happy about it. We acknowledge that there is a problem to be addressed with urgency. And we are getting positive results with our initiatives. We are very optimistic we will be able to achieve the desired improvements we wish for our learners,” Eder added.

Meantime, Eder said that they are happy that the Latter-day Saint (LDS) Charities for providing some school-based tutorial materials to the 56 schools where there are non-readers and struggling students.

“We are confident that these materials will significantly contribute to the division’s ongoing efforts in addressing learning gaps exacerbated by the two-year closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Eder said.

Among the donated items by the LDS Charities were tutorial cards, whiteboards, pencils, notebooks, tubs, flash drives, worksheets, handbooks, and laminating films.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)