President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” program has provided more classrooms to the province of Antique.

Department of Education (DepEd) Antique Division Engineer Rex Galero said the program of the president to construct more classrooms throughout the country has benefited the school children in the province.

The students used to attend classes in old classrooms already up for demolition or they have to share a classroom with a different grade level. “In the province of Antique since 2016 up to 2018, there are already 972 classrooms that were constructed,” he said.

He said that in 2016 at the start of the Duterte administration, the province was allotted P838.87 million for 595 classrooms in the 99 elementary and secondary schools in the province.

“One classroom could accommodate at least 45 school children,” he said.

He also said that in 2017, there were 230 classrooms constructed in 105 schools. “The budget allocation in 2017 for the new construction is P368.43 million,” he said.

Last year, there were 147 classrooms constructed in 16 schools with P322.78 million budget.

“For this year, there will be 16 classrooms in three schools that will be constructed with a budget of P29.545 million,” he said.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) handles the bidding for the construction of new classrooms.

“For elementary level, there is a need to construct 568 classrooms and for the secondary with 253 classrooms,” he said.

He added that a bigger number of ancillary facilities like Science Laboratory, Home Economics Building, Industrial Arts, Administration, Technical Vocational and Library were included in their five-year development plan starting this year.

The remaining classrooms and ancillary facilities amount to around P9,067,054,708 which will be implemented in the next five years.

Meanwhile, a mother of a Kinder II pupil of Sibalom Elementary School, who requested anonymity, said that she is very happy with the “Build, Build, Build” program of Duterte because his son is now using a new classroom with better ventilation. “The new classroom is also disaster-resilient that even during rainy days they are secured inside their classroom,” she said.

She said that the classroom is elevated that the rainwater could not come in considering that Sibalom is a flood-prone municipality.PNA/IMT