A SENIOR legislator on Friday called for the construction of evacuation centers at the municipal level nationwide to prevent the use of class rooms during calamities.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte made the call in the wake of Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara’s appeal to local governments to refrain from using classrooms as evacuation centers because it disrupts the students’ learning process.
Villafuerte was pushing for the passage of a bill that mandates the construction of permanent, climate-proof shelters in all cities and towns for use during severe tropical cyclones and other calamities.
In a statement, Villafuerte noted that more than one week after the devastation wrought by Typhoon Carina and the enhanced southwest monsoon or habagat, nearly 40,000 families are still in more than 800 evacuation centers.
“With almost 40,000 families in more than 800 evacuation centers, including public schools, after the worst flooding in Metro Manila and certain provinces since Ondoy struck 15 years ago, the 19th Congress should
prioritize a bill in its third and final session to build climate-proof evacuation centers in every city and municipality for disaster victims,” said Villafuerte,
“This will provide safe shelters for hapless families who are forced to abandon their homes during calamities or disasters—and put an end to the recurring sorry scenario of public schools and even churches being used as temporary abodes by tens of thousands of evacuees until such time that it becomes safe for them to go back to their dwelling places,” he added.
Villafuerte is a co-author of House Bill 7354, which calls for the construction of such evacuation centers nationwide. The House passed the bill earlier this year with a 307-1 vote.
He explained that the House-approved HB 7354 allows local government executives significant input in identifying and managing these permanent shelters in their areas.
A counterpart measure, Senate Bill 2451, was filed in September 2023 by eight senators led by Christopher Lawrence Go.
Metro Manila and four provinces were placed under a state of calamity last week due to record rains caused by the Carina-enhanced habagat, resulting in the worst flooding in these areas since tropical storm Ondoy on September 26, 2009.
“The use of public schools and even churches as temporary shelters for evacuees will continues to be a nagging woe whenever a killer storm or any other disaster or calamity hits us until such time that we have permanent ECs (evacuation centers) in every city and municipality that are built with adequate facilities and ready for increasingly erratic and destructive weather caused by climate change,” Villafuerte said.
He also said that for the government to put an end to this never-ending problem of local governments on where to house thousands of evacuees who flee their homes every time there are disasters or calamities, “we have to build climate-ready evacuation centers all over the country so our local governments will finally be able to stop using public schools in their localities as temporary shelters for dislocated families.”
In Memorandum 004-2024 dated July 25 on the use of public schools as evacuation centers, Angara told school heads that “classrooms shall only be used as a last resort,quot; and that “school premises shall be [used] as briefly as possible.”
For local governments requesting the use of schools as evacuation centers, Angara said in the same memo that agreements should be established with the concerned schools and that these local governments “should facilitate general cleaning, fumigation, payment of utilities, and repair of schools used as evacuation centers.”
