Jun Torres

Cabanatuan City to construct 47 school buildings

The city government will construct this year 47 public school buildings or 125 classrooms in support of the national government’s program to provide adequate infrastructure facilities for the education sector.

In a statement, Cabanatuan City Mayor Alvin Vergara said the project aims to address the classroom shortage in the city which was brought about primarily by the big increase in the enrollment in public elementary schools.

Because of the high tuition fees in private schools, some parents opted to enroll and/or transfer their children to public schools, the mayor said.

He said that the new school buildings will replace the dilapidated buildings damaged by termite and earthquakes.

The mayor noted that because of the lack of school buildings, some schools are using barangay halls and school grandstands and stage as temporary classrooms.

The total project cost, Vergara said, is P100 million, P90 million of which is funded by a loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). The remaining P10 million is shouldered by the city government.

The P90-million DBP loan is secured by a portion of the local government unit’s (LGU’s) special education fund, which is sourced from the proceeds of the additional one percent tax on real property.

Cabanatuan City is ranked first in the collection of real property taxes among LGU-cities in Region 3, according to a 2007 report of the Bureau of Local Government Finance.