Zamboanga City - - Mayor Celso Lobregat’s school building initiative steps up on high gear, as the chief executive unveiled in barangay Cabatangan Monday a two-storey 6 classroom, the sixth for the month of June.

Costing P6.62 million, the school building intended for the over 300 students of the Cabatangan Elementary School, was only one of the 8 projects turned over by the city government to the Barangay Council led by Edwina Jalon Francisco Monday afternoon.

The Cabatangan Elementary School building becomes the 6th school facility to be turned over in a month’s time, translating to an investment of roughly P33.4 million.

“We will never get tired of helping our education sector”, Mayor Lobregat declared, as he turned over the project to City Schools Division Superintendent Dolores Alcantara and to Cabatangan Elementary School Principal Teresita Carillo. “We will be turning over more school buildings and other facilities in other barangays in the days to come,” the mayor declared.

On June 2, Lobregat inaugurated the P5.76 million two-storey 8 classroom building at the Recodo Elementary School and the P4.3 million two-storey 6 classroom building at the Ayala National High School in the west coast, one after the other.

The Recodo elementary school building is temporarily being utilized by the 248 pioneer students of the Recodo National High School. The inauguration coincided with the opening of the Recodo secondary school.

On June 5, the P5.9 million 2-storey 8 classroom building for the Putik Central School was unveiled while June 8 was the inauguration date of the 2-storey 6 classroom building at the Labuan Central Elementary School worth P6.085 million.

Ten days later on June 15, Mayor Lobregat motored to the Culianan Learning Center to turn over the P4.8 million 2-storey 6 classroom building, which was only one of the total 11 projects inaugurated that day for barangay Culianan.

On Saturday, June 27, the mayor also turned over a fencing project at the Latuan Elementary School worth P499,512, along with 10 other infrastructure projects for the residents of Latuan in the east coast.

The over P33 million school facilities unveiled for the month of June form part of the massive school building program initiated by Mayor Lobregat since 2005.

Based on records, assistance and support to the education sector now reaches over P500 million or half a billion pesos, the highest ever in the city’s budget history.

The school buildings help improve the student classroom ratio thereby promoting quality education.

Mayor Lobregat believed that providing school buildings and other facilities to public elementary and secondary schools will help improve quality of education and consequently reduce poverty in this part of the country.

While providing for the needs of public schools is the main responsibility of the national government, Lobregat, who heads the Local School Board, said the city deems it proper to come in and help in order to ensure that the city’s youths will have access to quality education. (Sheila Covarrubiasa)