Damayan to turn over school to Pablo-hit town

COMPOSTELA VALLEY, Philippines – Close to 400 high school students are expected to benefit from the new six-room building that Operation Damayan, The Philippine STAR Group of Companies’ social arm, turns over today to the Corazon C. Aquino High School in Purok 1, Sitio Baclog, Barangay Osmeña, Compostela town.

The inauguration of the new school building, which The Philippine STAR constructed at a cost of over P3 million, marks not only the start of a new school year but also the beginning of a more hopeful future for the youth of Compostela.

The town was badly ravaged last December by super Typhoon Pablo, which claimed more than 1,000 lives.

Noting news reports on the huge number of out-of-school youths due to an acute shortage of public secondary schools in the country, Philippine STAR president and CEO Miguel G. Belmonte shared that the school donation is the company’s gift to families of Compostela Valley and a lasting contribution to the future of their youth.

“We were a school without a building,” teacher Sandy Yee said of what remained of Corazon C. Aquino High School following the devastation. Students and teachers had to make do with an old warehouse as a makeshift school.

Yee shared that they wanted to relocate to a safer area that would not be as badly affected by future typhoons. A local resident had donated a 5,000-sqm. property but they lacked the resources to build the school.

After a series of relief operations conducted with the help of STAR readers and benefactors, representatives of Operation Damayan visited the site and chose it as the beneficiary of its yearly Adopt-a-School program.

Each year since 2002, Operation Damayan has chosen one school from different areas across the Philippines for the said program.

Yee said the residents would have been happy with just one classroom, but Operation Damayan will inaugurate today a six-room school building with five classrooms and a library/clinic.

Local residents, especially parents and teachers as well as the students, are most grateful that they no longer have to take the daily eight-kilometer walk just to reach the main Compostela National High School in the poblacion.

Each classroom is equipped with its own restroom, projector, television and DVD player. Damayan also provided sewing machines and a tabletop oven for the school’s technology and livelihood education classes.

Following Damayan’s Adopt-a-School tradition, teachers, students and their parents present at the inauguration will be treated to breakfast cooked by Damayan volunteers, games with prizes, new school uniforms and bags with school supplies, all provided by The STAR.

Also joining STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte in the turnover are officials of the Department of Education and the local government.