PLDT, PBSP bring students closer to school with new classrooms

By PBSP
June 21, 2014

TACLOBAN CITY – To support the Department of Education’s (DepEd) aim to bring more students to school this coming year, Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Company with Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) turned over three classrooms in the remote towns of Northern Samar.

These classrooms were turned over to Palapag I Central School (CS) of Barangay Asum in Palapag and Barobaybay Academy Mission School (BAMS) in Barangay Barobaybay of Lavezares in a two-day activity attended by PLDT Head of Community Relations and Public Affairs Evelyn del Rosario and PBSP Senior Relationship Management Officer Olive Jabido.

Aside from the classrooms, PLDT also committed to fund for the construction of a computer laboratory in Palapag I CS.

These projects are funded through the Motolite-PBSP Balik-Baterya Program, where companies are encouraged to donate their used lead acid batteries (ULABs) which are then bought and recycled by Motolite. The sales of the donations are used to fund several projects implemented by PBSP.

PLDT Head of Community Relations and Public Affairs Evelyn del Rosario shared that the company has been funding projects for education since it is closest to PLDT and PBSP Chairman Manuel Pangilinan’s heart.

“MVP is the key to all these projects. And in PLDT, we always believe that education is the greatest equalizer. We also aim to help teachers and schools become globally competitive,” she added.

Better Education

DepEd Northern Samar Schools Division Superintendent Officer-in-Charge Cristito Eco stated how the classrooms could contribute to the provinces’ achievement of their targets given their previous year’s poor performance.

He revealed that in the previous school year, Northern Samar only reached 96% participation rate out of 116,000 enrollees, which left 4,640 students who had not been going to school.

“This is a concern we have to address this year. But with the presence of new physical facilities like these new classrooms in our schools, I know this will encourage those 4,000 students to study again, which will eventually improve our performance indicators,” Eco said.

In Palapag I CS, which is expecting more than 1,400 enrollees this school year, the classrooms will be used by its grade 5 & 6 students who used to share classrooms with the other lower grades.

On the other hand, the new classroom donated to BAMS will be used as a Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE) center for its high school students in preparation to the K-12 curriculum. It will be the first center of its kind in Barobaybay, with BAMS catering to scholars living in remote island barangays.

“With the new center, we know that our students will be more inspired to study because we are provided with an excellent physical setting conducive for learning,” BAMS incoming principal Sr. Ma. Rosalina Luzon said.

“With the skills that they will learn using the classroom as a TLE center, they can always use these skills to find a job and continue what they want for their educational attainment later on,” PBSP’s Jabido also shared.

Balik-Baterya

Since its launching in 2006, the Balik-Baterya Program has cinched the support of 138 donor companies and collected more than P57 million worth of ULABs that allowed them to implement and support 89 projects across the country.

PLDT has been a partner of the program since 2008 and has become the program’s top donor. With its ULABs, the company was able to provide 44 Learning Resource Centers or mini-libraries; construct roads, drainage systems and other facilities such as multi-purpose centers; and organize TB prevention programs.

PLDT is also the first company that used its ULAB donations to build classrooms and computer laboratories with equipment. With the addition of the newly donated classrooms, the company has already provided seven classrooms and two computer laboratories in the Visayas.

“We are slowly addressing the growing classroom backlog of the country so we could provide more classrooms to students who want to go to school. Our only hope is that the students will maximize the usage of this facility so they will have better learning experiences,” Jabido added.