Legarda pledges help for damaged school building

Bayambang, Pangasinan – Senator Loren Legarda has assured the Parents-Teachers Association of Bayambang Central School here that she would help in the restoration of the fire-damaged Gabaldon school building.

Legarda stressed that as built heritage structures, the Gabaldon buildings represent historic, architectural and socio-political significance to the country.

“These structures symbolize the first foundation of the Philippine public school system during the American colonial regime, in which each Filipino child, even from the most remote areas of the country, had access to formal education,” said Legarda.

“As we teach the Filipino youth our nation’s culture and history, we should also inculcate in them the respect for things that form part of our heritage,” she added.

But the fire-damaged buildings is just one of the many problems that is ailing the Bayambang Central School.

Over 2,000 elementary students have been displaced after the local government entered into a land-swap deal with a business that would ultimately transform the school property into a mall.

Filipinas Alcantara ,BCS Parents-Teachers-Association president, said they will stand firm opposing the school’s transfer.

“Our desire to return to our old school. It is a historical landmark of Bayambang, being more than a hundred years old now,” Alcantara said.

The Gabaldon school buildings were designed by American architect William Parsons and funded through Act No. 1801 authored by Philippine Assemblyman Isauro Gabaldon.

Legarda has also filed Senate Resolution 800, asking the Senate to inquire about the status of the implementation of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) heritage school building restoration program.

The program is part of Memorandum Order No. 164 Series of 2009 that had the DepEd creating a Task Force on Heritage School Buildings to determine the heritage education infrastures across all regions which it should restore.

Source: Manila Bulletin