‘Sinking School’ in Pampanga --  Victim of Budget Mispriorities?

The Sta. Lucia Elementary School in San Fernando, Pampanga is known as the “sinking school.” Most of its buildings are literally half-buried – almost like ruins jutting from the ground after years of battling annual floods and lahar flows.  

by Mike Ac-ac
Bulatlat.com   

VICTIM OF BUDGET MISPRIORITIES? Years of flood onslaughts and meager financial support from the government have left three school buildings, including this one in photo, condemned and useless since 1995.

More than a decade has passed since the Mt. Pinatubo eruption completely altered the landscape of Pampanga, yet its aftermath continues to shape the daily lives of the ordinary “Kapampangan.” 

Volcanic sediments have silted riverbeds and clogged waterways in the province, causing perennial flooding and dealing huge losses to the local economy at an estimated P1.5 billion every year. 

A major casualty has been the education sector, as exemplified by the case of Sta. Lucia Elementary School (SLES) in San Fernando, the provincial capital city. 

An hour of heavy downpour is enough to inundate half of the school’s 12 buildings in knee-deep waters, that’s why its students prefer wearing boots to school shoes. Regular flooding has taken its toll on the health and safety of teachers and students and even on the quality of education, as admitted by school officials. 

SLES has been able to survive by scrimping on meager financial assistance from the local government to fight the flood onslaughts. But this has come at the expense of its 38 teachers and 1,180 students, most of whom come from poor families. 

The school begins the academic year a month ahead of the usual opening of classes in June, in anticipation of heavy flooding during the typhoon months. The floods usually take about two to three weeks during which classes are suspended. 

A major flood could rise to a meter high. One struck in 1995, causing permanent damage and leaving three school buildings half-buried in mud. All three structures have been condemned ever since. 

Lack of funds has prevented SLES from rehabilitating its classrooms or constructing new ones with elevated floors. “We decided to just lay cement over the sand and mud that have accumulated inside (the classrooms) as a stop-gap measure,” says school principal Leoncio Vergara. 

Stagnant floodwaters pose another hazard. Mosquitoes abound inside the condemned buildings where the accumulated water has turned dark-green and murky. Among its victims was a teacher who was hospitalized last year, relates Vergara. 

Sinking school gets a lift 

“I wonder if these battered buildings are still counted as ‘functioning’ school buildings in the government’s annual inventory,” remarked Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo when he paid a visit to SLES late last year to open a P1-million, three-room elevated building funded through the party-list group’s development assistance allocation. 

“The government says we have a shortage of some 50,000 school buildings. The actual shortage could be much bigger if we were to include non-functioning buildings such as those in SLES,” he told a group of teachers, barangay officials and parents at the inauguration ceremonies. 

A son of a landless farmer-tenants, Ocampo studied in public schools in nearby Sta. Rita town and has seen first-hand how government’s “distorted priorities” have eroded vital social services, such as education and health. 

“These distorted priorities continue,” pointed out Ocampo, a member of the committee on appropriations at the House of Representatives and a “Most Outstanding Kapampangan” awardee for social justice in 2002 by the Pampanga provincial government. 

“It is unfortunate that the government has failed to effectively address the shortage in classrooms, books, chairs and teachers,” he said. “This has been the case for SLES and many others since public school institutions always get low priority in the annual budget process.” 

Under this year’s proposed P804.2-billion national budget, bigger allocations will go to debt servicing, the military and police. Around 28%, or P223 billion alone will go to interest payments of the country’s foreign and domestic loans. 

The regular budget of the defense department will increase by 9.6% from last year’s P38.7 billion to P42.4 billion in 2003, while the police budget by 7% from P33 billion to P35.5 billion. 

On the other hand, only P2 billion has been allotted for the construction of school buildings, despite a projected classroom shortage of 47,212 for the coming school year. The earmarked fund is only good for 5,333 classrooms, or a mere 12% of the requirement, as admitted by the education department itself. 

Debt cap?

Ocampo and fellow Bayan Muna Reprsentatives Crispin Beltran and Liza Maza have revived initiatives in Congress to repeal the automatic appropriations law for debt servicing, which they say has allowed the government to continuously and blindly allocate billions of pesos for debt payments, including the most fraudulent loans of past administrations. 

House Bill No.5542 seeks to effectively repeal automatic appropriation for debt service, specifically by amending Section 31 of Presidential Decree No.1177 issued in 1977 by the late Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, as well as Section 26, Chapter 4, Book VI of Executive Order No.292 issued in 1987 by then President Corazon Aquino. 

Recently, senators have also floated the idea of enacting a “debt cap” that would limit the government’s future borrowings to ensure fiscal discipline and rein in the ballooning national debt now estimated at P3.4 trillion. Bayan Muna believes, however, that the focus of the debt cap should be on current debt payments, rather than on future borrowings. 

Both proposals are expected to face rough sailing in Congress and stiff opposition, especially from the country’s foreign creditors. Until then, the teachers and students of SLES, and in many other neglected public institutions could only hope and struggle. Bulatlat.com

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