EVERY TIME a typhoon or earthquake batters Western Visayas, we witness the same heart-breaking scenes — damaged classrooms, roofless buildings, and thousands of displaced learners forced into makeshift spaces. After Typhoon “Tino” and the recent series of earthquakes, more than 400 classrooms in Iloilo alone were damaged, with several declared unsafe for occupancy, according to data from the Department of Education (DepEd). The cycle is painfully familiar: destruction, temporary learning arrangements, and the long wait for repair funds.
This recurring tragedy exposes the fragility of our education infrastructure and the inadequacy of a system that relies heavily on DepEd’s Quick Response Fund (QRF) — a mechanism meant for immediate relief but not for sustainable rebuilding. While the QRF can patch up minor damages or finance temporary fixes, it cannot address the root of the problem: our classrooms were never designed to endure the full force of nature that constantly visits this region.
In a disaster-prone country like ours, where typhoons and earthquakes are not exceptions but certainties, resilience must be built into the blueprint, not treated as an afterthought. “Building back better” is not a slogan — it should be a national standard. Every school that rises from the ruins must be stronger, safer, and smarter than the one it replaces.
To achieve this, DepEd cannot work in isolation. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), local governments, and even private sector engineers must be part of a coordinated and sustained effort to upgrade design standards. DPWH must ensure that classroom plans comply with updated seismic and wind-load requirements, while LGUs should take active roles in enforcing local building codes and conducting post-disaster safety audits.
Let us move away from reactive rebuilding toward preventive construction — to design schools that can double as evacuation centers, withstand Category 5 typhoons, and absorb seismic shocks without collapsing on the very children they are meant to protect. This requires not just funding, but foresight and political will.
Every ruined classroom is not merely a financial loss — it is a broken promise to the Filipino child. If we continue to rebuild the same way, we will continue to lose the same way. Western Visayas deserves schools that endure — not just survive — the next storm or quake. It is time we build back smarter, stronger, and better.
