AMOSUP, AJSU build schoolhouses in areas devastated by ‘Yolanda’

The Associated Marine Officers’ and Seamen’s Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP) and the All-Japan Seamen’s Union (AJSU) recently embarked on a joint school building undertaking, in coordination with the Department of Education (DepEd) in areas devastated by super typhoon ‘Yolanda’ in November 2013, to help children, mostly of seafarers’ families, move on.

Labeled as SPEAR (Seafarers Project for Emergency Assistance in Rebuilding Classrooms), the greater majority of beneficiaries are hometowns of hundreds of AMOSUP-AJSU seafarers. These include Bantayan Central School in Bantayan Island and Oboob, Bantayan in Cebu province; Baspar Elementary School in Tacloban City, Leyte; and Catbalogan III Central Elementary School in Catbalogan, Samar.

A memorandum of agreement (MOA) was recently signed by AMOSUP President Dr. Conrad F. Oca, AJSU President Yasumi Morita and DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro for the construction of the school buildings in the area and the needed school buildings’ furniture and equipment for an estimated cost of 13.5 million.

According to Oca and Morita, as provided in the MOA, DepEd undertakes to provide policy guidelines and directions in coordination with AMOSUP to ensure prompt implementation of the project. “DepEd also undertakes to provide proper management, maintenance and care for the improvement due the beneficiary schools through the school heads or principals”, they said.

The SPEAR initiative entails the construction initially of five two-classroom school buildings with toilets and chalkboards, and furnished with teachers’ tables, chairs, armchairs and ceiling fans. Two classrooms will be used for computers, multimedia projectors with screens; printers, air conditioners, computer tables and chairs.

AMOSUP and AJSU which funded the project, entitled them to engage the services of ‘licensed’ architect and engineer to prepare the plans, designs and other specifications for the school buildings, and enter into contract of construction with ‘licensed’ contractors under the MOA, which likewise tasks AMOSUP to administer the efficient and effective implementation of the project, including coordination and execution of the deed of donation of the buildings.

During the MOA signing, Secretary Luistro said the AJSU and AMOSUP group joins a long tradition of ‘partnership’ of the Philippines with Japan through their contribution by providing classrooms that would be built better than those schools devastated by typhoons. “I think these new classrooms are built to last beyond another super typhoon”. What is important is the ‘friendship built between the two countries’, he stressed, adding , “It is a friendship of common experience in dealing with many disasters such as earthquakes and typhoons.”