PALO, Leyte-Five years after the onslaught of super typhoon ‘Yolanda’, the auditorium of Saint Paul School of Professional Studies (SPSPS) based this town was finally refurbished with new amenities added.
Erwin Vincent Alcala, president and board chair of SPSPS, said that the family of Mary Ngo, to which the new refurbished auditorium was named, was kind enough to donate 10 air conditioning units for the auditorium.
However, Johnny Chu Go, representative of family, said that they decided to donate the glass enclosure to make the donation complete.
Alcala informed that the auditorium was damaged during Yolanda and the school management started to look for funds for its repair.
The school requested Johnny Go for the refurbishment of the building said Alcala.
The donations included 10 units of 5-tonners and glass enclosures.
Alcala said that the air-conditioned consumption of the auditorium is equal to the air-conditioned consumption of the whole school, emphasizing how expensive the cost of the facility.
With the desire of the school to provide affordable accommodation to the people of Eastern Visayas, the school invested along with donation of benefactors.
Students can use the facility for free while other entities who want to use it will be charged.
And even before its formal inauguration last Friday ((Feb.15), the venue had been used in various national event with several schools based in Metro Manila visiting the SPSPS for benchmarking.
The school authorities who visited SPSPS brought with them to Manila the best practices of the school because of the school’s facilities, Alcala said.
“It makes us proud that a provincial school is considered as a benchmark of top universities in other places,” the SPSPs president said.
The blessing and formal turn-over of the Mary Ngo Auditorium was graced by the Ngo’s family, Archbishop John Du, and other school officials.
(LIZBETH ANN A.ABELLA)

In Biliran

TACLOBAN CITY- Recipients of a housing resettlement project in Culaba, Biliran have alleged that they are being threatened of being delisted if they will not vote ‘straight’ in the forthcoming May 13 elections.
Margarita Villegas, a resident of Barangay Marbel of said town, claimed that they were asked to ‘vote straight’ in favor of outgoing Mayor Lorenzo Reveldez who is running for vice governor of the province, and his brother, Councilor Rodito Reveldez, who is running for mayor of the town.
“We were told that we will not be awarded with our housing unit if we will not vote straight,” Villegas, in a media interview, said.
Culaba is a recipient of a housing project from the National Housing Authority (NHA) located in Barangay Guinapondan.
The housing project is part of the government’s Yolanda assistance program.
In Culaba, the recipients of this housing project are families living in coastal areas, declared as danger zones, of the town.
The said housing project has more than 700 units but many of the recipients chose not to occupy their units due to absence of water and power supplies.
Villegas said that they find it unfair that their eventual occupation to their housing units is being politicized.
“We are the beneficiaries of this pabahay project of our government but we will not be given our unit as he claimed that he has the right whom he want to award the units,” she said, referring to Mayor Reveldez.
Mayor Reveldez was contacted by Leyte Samar Daily Express for his side through his mobile phone on this claim by the beneficiaries but did not received a reply from him.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

In Ormoc City

ORMOC CITY-A two-storey, 6-classroom school building and a technical vocational laboratory (TVL) multi-purpose building were turned over by Rep. Lucy Marie Torres-Gomez and the Department of Public Works and Highways Leyte Fourth District Engineering Office led by Lino Francisco C. Gonzalez, last (February 10).
The school buildings are convergence project between Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Public Works and Highways.
The two-storey building amounting P11,429,393 and TVL which cost P 2,521,338 are under the Basic Education Facilities Fund 2017 (BEFF) of DepEd which was implemented by DPWH – Leyte 4th District Engineering Office (DEO).
The new classroom building can accommodate an average of 300 students, thence, minimizing classroom congestion.
This year, under the BEFF 2018, DepEd – DPWH Convergence Program is implementing sixty-nine (69) school building projects, out of the 69 sites, 34 sites are implemented in Ormoc City Division, and the other sites are under Leyte Division.
In addition, the school buildings are scheduled to be completed on the first quarter of the year, except for the multi-storey buildings.
This convergence project between the DepEd and DPWH demonstrates that coordination is needed in order to build quality school building infrastructures and facilities for every Filipino student. (PR)