1.3 million students in EV are enrolled for this school year

TACLOBAN CITY- More than 1.3 million students from public elementary and secondary schools across the region attended their first day of classes on Monday(June 4) as perennial woes continue to hound several schools.
With the ‘Brigada Eskwela’ conducted a week before the opening of the classes, formal classes formally started though schools were directed to continue to accept late enrollees, said Jasmin Calzeta, DepEd regional information officer.
“Teachers are expected to come with their first day of lessons this Monday,” she said.
But as in previous school years, woes continue to hound several schools of the region.
At the Campetik Elementary School in Palo, Leyte, they need at least school buildings to accommodate its growing number of enrollees, its principal said.
“We still need at least two school buildings for us to accommodate our pupils,” Jennifer Avila, school principal, said.
As of Monday, the school has more than 220 enrolled students which is expected to increase as enrollment is still ongoing.
“We expect to have an increase number of students for this school year,” Avila said. During the first day of classes, the school has accepted more than 20 students.
Last year, the school had 270 students.
At the San Fernando Central School (SFCS) this city, school principal Filitia Waniwan said that while they don’t need new school building, they are wanting of students.
According to Waniwan, she expects that the number of enrolled students would decline as families located within their school have been transferred to the northern part of the city after their houses were destroyed by the onslaught of super typhoon ‘Yolanda.’
“We expect to drop by 70 percent our number of enrollees as families have moved out to the northern resettlement areas,” she said.
As of Monday, SFCS has 1,122 attended the first day of classes.
Last school year, SFCS, which is one of the biggest elementary school in the city, had an enrollment of 1,504.
Lily Dumas, school principal of the Salvacion Elementary School, which is located in the northern part of the city, said that she has noted a slight increase of their school enrollment for this school year.
She said that as of Monday, the school has already about 490 students which is just six students shay away from last year’s school term.
“We have yet to have a final figure as enrollment is still ongoing,” Dumas said.
The city schools division has earlier reported that about 3,000 students in the seven schools in the northern part of the city, where families who totally lost their houses due to Yolanda were resettled, are expected to be enrolled.
But with the increasing number of students of the schools, 88 temporary classrooms were built to address the lack of school rooms, said Thelma Quitalig, city schools division superintendent, said in a media interview.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

SAN RICARDO, Southern Leyte – The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Southern Leyte will start this year the construction of a viaduct forming part of the San Ricardo-Liloan Circumferential Road.
Through the P175 million earmarked for 2018, the DPWH will be able to implement the first phase of the viaduct project, said DPWH Southern Leyte district engineering office chief Ma. Margarita Junia.
The DPWH plan to build the viaduct to preserve the natural rock formations in the southernmost tip of Leyte Island. The viaduct will rise within the boundary of this town’s Kinachawa and San Ramon villages.
Instead of blasting the hard rock to clear an area to pave the way for road opening works, government engineers will build 450-meter viaduct snaking through the rock formation.
A viaduct is a long elevated roadway usually consisting of a series of short spans supported on arches, piers, or columns. It is a long, high bridge that carries a road over a yawning gap of a natural structure, like a valley.
The P175 million first allocation is just fraction of the estimated P540 million funding to build the structure. The government needs at least P1.2 million for each meter of the viaduct project.
The decision to build a viaduct was made after consultations with concerned government agencies and officials. The project is in line with Southern Leyte’s development plan.
Also ongoing within the proposed alternative road is the P100 million concreting project in this town connecting to a foreign-funded farm-to-market road in Liloan town.
The new circumferential road will reduce travel distance from Liloan port to another exit point to Mindanao in San Ricardo town from more than 40 kilometers to only 20 kilometers.
It will convert an existing provincial road into a primary highway, allowing motorists to reach San Ricardo from Liloan town without traversing the landslide-prone and accident-prone road sections in San Francisco and Pintuyan towns.
DPWH aims to build a safer alternative road to San Ricardo after noting that more buses and rolling cargoes use Benit port in San Ricardo town instead of nearby Liloan port, considering the former’s proximity to Surigao.
Within the existing Liloan-San Ricardo Road is the saddle road along the boundary of barangays Son-ok and Manglit. The road leads to Benit port, one of the major exit points to Mindanao from Visayas. (PR)

TACLOBAN CITY- An Waray party-list Rep.Victoria Isabel Noel said that her bill providing business opportunities to government workers who are to retire from service is now on its third and final reading at the House of Representatives.
Noel said that the main purpose of her bill, numbered as House Bill 3335, is to ensure that government workers who will retire from service will remain productive and will continue to have an income of their own.
“They should not just rely on their retirement benefits which are not that big (of amount). They can still be productive by having their own income like putting up a business,” she said.
Noel filed the said bill in 2016 and was recently approved on third reading.
She hope that HB 3335 will be approved by the Lower House as she disclosed that her bill will have its counterpart at the Senate.
Once it becomes a law, it will be known as the “Government Employees Entrepreneurship Development Act.”
According to Noel, she filed the measure as her way to help and encourage retiring government workers hone their entrepreneurial skills to prepare them for better economic opportunities after working with government service.
Other government agencies like the TESDA (Technical Education Skills and Development Authority) and DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) will also be involved in providing assistance to the retiring government workers.
Noel said that the law has two major points, first to ensure the continuous flow of innovative and development oriented government programs and projects for entrepreneurial development and second to ensure the creative utilization of highly competitive and resourceful government employees whether in services or post-service.
With the passage of the bill into law, entrepreneurial training programs will be established by the government offices and agencies shall prepare a post-service government service entrepreneurship development program for their employees based on the guidelines prescribed by the Civil Service Commission.
She added that it will be designed in such a manner as to help employees learn what they need to know to develop ideas and actualize them into successful businesses and how to increase entrepreneurial opportunities in their respective municipalities, provinces and regions.
It will also introduce the employees to technology transfer systems, entrepreneurial networks she added.
As a post service assistance to employees through this law, all government agencies shall extend post-service assistance to their respective retirees and shall include this as part of their human resources development plan.
The proposed bill also mandates the development of a post-service assistance program to backstop aspiring entrepreneurs in the development and implementation of their ideas.
The program will cover the entirety of the venture creation process from generation to building viable business. (LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA with report, JOEY A. GABIETA)

TACLOBAN CITY – Eighty-two pieces of illegally transported lumber were seized by the Fisheries Law Enforcement Team (FLET) of this City on the shoreline of Mahusay Beach, Brgy. 88 San Jose at around 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 2, 2018.
According to the report the team was conducting their regular sea-borne patrol operation off San Pedro Bay when they discovered 1,953 board feet of Lawaan with an estimated market value of P87,885.
Unidentified men aboard a motorized banca abandoned the ‘hot logs’ recovered by the team of patrol team leader Raul Duque said FLET In-Charge Carlos Dave Castello.
The seized logs were brought to the FLET office for documentation and for proper turnover to the Department Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
From March to May this year, FLET had five apprehensions in its extensive campaign to impose fisheries and environmental laws pursuant to orders of Mayor Cristina G. Romualdez.
In two separate operations, last March and April 70 pieces of lumber were seized off Cancabato and San Pedro Bays in violation of R.A. 7161 or the illegal transport of forest products. – H.J. Roca/CIO

TACLOBAN CITY- A police officer shot and killed a motorcycle mechanic in a public market in La Paz, Leyte at about 10:40 am Sunday(June 3) with a personal grudge that happened 14 years ago as the alleged motive.
Senior Inspector Ernie Rocha, officer-on-case of the La Paz police station, identified the perpetrator as SPO1 Ritchie Ramelo,38, who is assigned at the PNP-4 based in Camp Vicente Lim, Calamba, Laguna and a resident of Barangay Miring, Tabon-Tabon,Leyte, who shot several times Adan Tejero,37 using his service firearm of Caliber 45.
Based on their investigation, the shooting incident happened at about 10:40 in the morning Sunday (June 3) at the town’s public market located in Brgy. Poblacion, district 3.
Rocha said that the victim was playing chess outside a store, El Cinco General Merchandise, when the suspect walked his way towards him and shot him three times, hitting him on different parts of his body.
The police officer immediately ran to a waiting motorcycle driven by his cousin identified as Ricardo Gausin, 33 and fled.
Rocha said that upon learning from witnesses where the suspect and his companion was heading, they immediately conducted their pursuit operation which led to their arrest in Brgy.Cabacungan, Dulag, and Leyte.
The suspects were arrested at about 11 am.
“We asked him to stop but he attempted to draw his service firearm. But I asked him not to attempt as this could led to a bloody confrontation. He throw his gun and surrendered to us,” Rocha said in a phone interview.
And based on their questioning with SPO1 Ramelo, he allegedly shot the victim due to a personal grudge.
“He had a grudge against the victim as he claimed that he was bullied and physically abused 14 years ago by the victim. All these years, he kept his anger towards the victim,” Rocha said.
Ramelo, who went home to his village in Miring to attend its fiesta Saturday, and his cousin are now detained at the La Paz lockup cell as they are to be charged for murder.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

TACLOBAN CITY–The Department of Education (DepEd) here has reminded school heads and teachers to strictly implement the agency’s “no collection policy” as the new school term started Monday (June 4).
Jasmin Calzita, information officer of DepEd Eastern Visayas, said that aside from enforcing the DepEd Order 41 series of 2012 which covers the prohibition of collecting fees during enrolment and the start of classes, school officials are also urged to “make the opening of classes festive especially for our kindergarten.”
“We have made it a strong policy regarding the no collection policy,” she said.
Calzita said that those who will defy this order are to be given proper sanction as parents should report it to their office if they encounter such issue.
She also disclosed that during the opening of classes, Oplan Balik Eskwela-Public Assistance Command Center (OBE-PACC) were put into place to entertain issues and concerns.
Meanwhile, Edgar Tenasas, assistant schools division superintendent in Leyte, said that the province was already set for the new school year.
“Our school heads and teachers are doing their part to prepare their schools for the opening. In the municipality where I am assigned for the Brigada Eskwela monitoring, I witnessed the concerted efforts of the school personnel and the community in all of the elementary and secondary schools in Babatngon, Leyte,” said Tenasas.
Eastern Visayas, with its 13 school divisions, has 4, 161 public schools with 47, 334 teachers and 7, 485 non- teaching personnel. The region has a total of 301 private schools.
During its partnership roadshow last month, the region generated at least 38 memorandum of agreements and a total of P200,439,066 from various donors to fund its educational gaps like malnutrition, lack of non-teaching staff and Alternative Learning System faculty, lack of high school campuses in far-flung barangays, congested classrooms, high dropout rate, decreasing enrollment among elementary students, lack of school budget, low performance in the National Achievement Test, and lack of data-driven system to track performances of schools, among other school problems.(RONALD O. REYES)