Wednesday, January 10, 2007 ‘Palitao’ downs 20 Talisay graders
AT LEAST 20 grade one pupils of Mohon Elementary School (MES) in Talisay City fell ill yesterday morning for eating palitao, a local delicacy.
The young patients experienced vomiting and stomach pain after eating the delicacy during recess, prompting schoolteachers and parents to rush them to the Talisay District Hospital past 10 a.m.
Their ailment was not serious though, as 18 of them were released from the hospital barely an hour later. But two of them - Chello Abatayo and Maria Lou Obejero, both 7 years old – were still under observation at press time.
Like their classmates, both Abatayo and Obejero suffered the same fate, experiencing stomachache and vomiting when they were taken to the hospital.
MES principal Ophelia Hermosa immediately ordered a certain Maria Bote, the palitao vendor, to refrain from selling the delicacy in school.
The MES will get samples of the palitao, which is made of ground rice with sugar and grated coconut meat as its toppings, and have these checked at a government-run health facility.
Initially, Hermosa theorized that the sugar was the culprit because the children’s grade I Teacher Gliceria Abellana, who had eaten the same delicacy, did not fall ill.
Sugar-free diet
For health reasons, Abellana reportedly avoided sugar on her diet, she added.
At the hospital, the children reportedly complained that the sugar on their palitao tasted bad. The parents suspected instead that it could be food seasoning mistaken by Bote as sugar.
Sun.Star Cebu tried to interview Bote, whom Hermosa called for an emergency meeting with MES teachers, but she refused to comment.
Hermosa said she found that Bote was not an accredited food dealer of the school’s cooperative and that she only began supplying palitao last December yet.
The MES cooperative, she added, sells bread and juice, not palitao.
The Department of Education has regulated the sale of local delicacies in schools following the death of 27 school children in Mabini, Bohol for eating fried cassava in March last year.
Authorities discovered that the cassava they ate contained pesticide, which caused their death. (GC)
