Bayambang school’s PTA asks DepEd to intercede
CLAMOR FOR RETURN TO OLD SITE
BAYAMBANG—Speaking for the members of the Parent-Teachers’ Association of Bayambang Central School, its president has appealed to Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro to intercede in their year-long plea for the return of schoolchildren to their old school site in Zone 3.
Filipinas Alcantara told local newsmen the parents and teachers are already wondering why the court’s temporary restraining order asking them to be relocated to their new school site reportedly owned by a businessman in Barangay Magsaysay, has not been lifted to allow them to return to old school compound.
Parents like her who have children studying in the Bayambang Central School are hoping they would return soon to the old compound because the new site is more than a kilometer away and has placed an added financial burden to the families.
“What I know about TRO is good for 60 days only but we have been here for already one year suffering from extra transportation costs,” Alcantara said.
She said both Mayor Ricardo Camacho and Schools Superintendent Alma Ruby Torio have told them that it’s up to DepEd to decide whether they should remain in their relocation site or return to the old site. “They are now buck-passing,” she lamented.
“We are reiterating our appeal to the DepEd to please act on this as soon as possible,” she added.
Judge Hermogenes Fernandez, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 56 in San Carlos City granted on Oct. 30 last year a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction ordering school executives of the 100-year old Bayambang Central School in Poblacion here to refrain from defying and instead obey an executive order issued by the mayor for their transfer to a new site.
Camacho cited the bad condition of the school after its 12-room Gabaldon type building was razed to the ground in June last year and the rise in dengue cases in the school due to poor sanitation.
Alcantara already suspects a collusion between the local government and the DepEd local officials for allowing the issue to be left unresolved permanently and compel them to stay in the new compound
She said townsfolk believe that someone big and influential who is interested in the prime lot location of old school site to be developed into a shopping mall is behind the interminable delay in the resolution of the court case.
She said she wants to meet the “Mr. William Chua”, the reported owner of the two-hectare school compound with new facilities to thank him “for his benevolence”, if indeed the development of the relocation site was an act of a good Samaritan but nobody seems to have met him, or even know if he exists at all.
The three- hectare property old school site reportedly belongs to the local government unit and Alcantara feels their plea to be returned to the old site has fallen on deaf ears.
About 2,000 pupils from Zones 1 to 7, Tambac and Telbang study in the central school. (Tita Roces)
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