Students sacrifice allowance to help typhoon survivors
Everybody has a heart to share. This is one example how the inherent spirit to share actually needs a vehicle for it to manifest, otherwise, it will dissipate. Mentors guiding their students. And these students will eventually be wonderful mentors, too. News like this makes me happy. So I'm sharing this story from the Iloilo Provincial Capitol .....
ILOILO – Thousands of students from Iloilo National High School (INHS) sacrificed their one day meal and transportation allowance for Friday to help the victims of Super Typhoon “Yolanda” in Northern Iloilo.
This is according to Dr. Riza Amaguin, the school’s former principal who went to the office of Governor Arthur Defensor Sr. yesterday (Nov. 14, 2013) to inform the latter of the school’s initiative.
“The school, now headed by Dr. Nordy Siason, declared a ‘typhoon holiday’ and the students set aside their whole day allowance to donate it to typhoon-ravaged schools in the province,” Amaguin said.
The retired principal, currently serving as the corporate secretary of Young Women’s Christian Association-Iloilo, added that the student’s decision is supported by their parents and the faculty of the school.
There are about 4,000 students enrolled in INHS located in La Paz, Iloilo City and if each of them will donate their one day allowance of P50.00 for instance, a substantial amount of cash can be generated to repair even one or two school buildings in Northern Iloilo.
Reports from Department of Education Division of Iloilo revealed that there are 1,162 classrooms totally damaged and 904 classrooms are being used as evacuation centers in 23 typhoon-hit towns as of yesterday.
On top of the data, DepEd-Iloilo estimated that they need P501-million to rebuild the damaged school buildings and the construction work would take some time granting the number of damaged facilities.
But Governor Arthur Defensor Sr. said the province, with the support of the national government, will find ways to resolve the problem in due time.
“We will pull our resources together. But for now, our immediate concern is our hungry constituents in remote villages,” Defensor stressed.
He also acknowledged that there is a need to expedite the relief operation. Since the typhoon hit the province on November 8, the province was only able to distribute 48,090 family packs of relief goods out of 1663,982 families needing it.
The Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO) already spent P8-million in relief goods comprised of rice (3,000 sacks), sardines (2,200 boxes), instant noodles (2,200 boxes), biscuits (1,400 boxes), and mineral water (800 boxes of 4 litters and 2,000 boxes of 1 litter bottles). (Jezza A. Nepomoceno/Capitol News)
