Gabaldon schools in Cebu to be preserved

CEBU, Philippines — At least 140 Gabaldon school buildings in Cebu will be among the 1,800 Gabaldon school blocks nationwide that the Department of Education (DepEd) will spend millions on for preservation.

Cebu First District Rep. Eduardo Gullas said DepEd will spend another P384 million in 2020 to renew and preserve heritage public school buildings all over the country.

"The amount is on top of the P2.06 billion already earmarked this year for the conservation and restoration of Gabaldon and other historical school houses,” Gullas said in a statement.

Gullas, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said many of the remaining Gabaldon school structures were built during the early years of American colonization, and are now well over a century old.

“They were constructed under what was basically the country’s first public school building program,” he said.

The program was introduced by Isauro Gabaldon, a member of the 1907 Philippine Assembly who authored the law that appropriated P1 million “for the construction of school houses of strong materials in barrios with guaranteed daily attendance of not less than 60 pupils.”

“Our Gabaldon school houses are valuable cultural assets that hold pieces of our history,” Gullas said.

Gullas also cited the need “to safeguard the heritage school structures to remind future generations of Filipinos of the grandeur and aesthetic splendor of the architectural designs of the past.”

The conservation and restoration of Gabaldon school buildings is mandated by Republic Act 11194, which President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law in January this year.

The new law compels DepEd to identify, refurbish, and protect all Gabaldon school structures in coordination with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the National Historical Commission and the National Museum.

Under the law, all Gabaldon school houses are recognized as “built heritage” that form part of the country’s “cultural property” under the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009.

Gabaldon school houses were built based on a standard design developed by William Parsons, a consulting architect to the United States government from 1905 to 1914.

Parsons was a protégé of Daniel Burnham, who created the first masterplans for the urban development of the cities of Manila, Baguio, Chicago and downtown Washington, D.C. (FREEMAN)