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BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017
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ILOILO City – Of the 375 target senior high school buildings for construction, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region 6 has completed only 41.
Budget and land issues were slowing down the construction, according to Assistant Director Al Fruto.
The construction of 178 school buildings is ongoing but work on 156 more is yet to start, he revealed.
One senior high school building has three or four floors. This takes six to seven months to complete, said Fruto.
The 41 finished senior high school buildings were 26.41 percent of DPWH’s target – way below the goal of 85 percent completion by this time.
Construction started early last year.
The required soil exploration before each school building’s construction started strained the budget, according to Fruto.
“We are waiting for additional funds,” he said.
Region 6 was allotted P3.59 billion in 2016 for the construction of senior high school buildings.
Land availability is also a problem. Either the schools concerned do not have enough area for new school buildings or their land ownership is being questioned, said Fruto.
A total of 127 senior high school buildings were planned for Iloilo province, 112 in Antique, 30 in Capiz, 26 in Guimaras, and 10 in Iloilo City.
Fruto said DPWH-6 hopes to finish the construction of 178 school buildings before the start of school year 2017-2018 this June.
“We are really trying to hit our 85 percent to 90 percent target,” he said.
DPWH is coordinating with the Department of Education (DepEd) to address budget and land problems, he said.
“There’s an ongoing validation with DepEd,” said Fruto./PN
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