THE Mandaue City Government will compensate for the damaged and lost school appliances and tools in Mandaue City Central School (MCCS) after it was used as an isolation center since May 2020.
Last week, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes convened with the Mandaue City Isolation Unit (MCIU) administrator and Department of Education (DepEd) Mandaue Division Superintendent Nimfa Bongo regarding the complaints of the teachers at the MCCS about their lost belongings and damaged appliances after the city used the school as an isolation center.
They lost their stand fans, industrial fans, electric kettles, speakers, kitchen tools and laptops.
The appliances in their classrooms such as TVs and electric fans were smashed and the copper was removed.
John Eddu Ybañez, executive assistant of Cortes, said the City could not 100 percent attribute the theft and damage at the school to the patients housed at the MCCS.
He said after the City pulled out from the school and conducted the disinfection, there was still an interval before the teachers entered the classroom.
Based on the list of the lost and damaged items given by the principal, Ybañez said 80 percent were electric fans.
If the electric fans were smashed and the copper was removed by the patients, what did they use while they were in isolation, said Ybañez.
Despite this, Ybañez said Cortes told the school that the City will compensate for the damaged things that are essential for the school and for the students.
The City will allocate a budget to compensate for the lost and damaged things such as the electric fans and the kitchen tools in the home economics building.
However, Ybañez said, it will not compensate for the personal belongings that the teachers left in their classrooms before the school was used as an isolation center.
The reason is that the City had given the teachers ample time to get their things since the construction of the isolation facility lasted almost two months.
During that time, he said, the teachers and school staff were not prohibited from entering the school premises before the city admitted Covid-19 patients.
If they had valuables in the classroom, they would have or should have retrieved them.
Dr. Alma Bardaquillo, principal of MCCS, earlier said the City was supposed to occupy only the Gabaldon building, Friendship building and the Kindergarten building. But the local government used the whole school. That is why some teachers failed to retrieve their belongings.
Bardaquillo said she messaged the teachers regarding the announcement but due to the absence of public transport, they did not get the chance to get some of their things until they were banned from entering when the admission started.
Mandaue City also used other public schools, but it has not received complaints about lost or damaged things from them. (KFD)