Vice President Leni Robredo joined Navotas Mayor John Rey Tiangco and locals in the Brigada Eskwela of a public school at Barangay Tangos South in the city on Tuesday.
Tiangco and Robredo helped repaint a classroom at Wawa Elementary School, where around 700 students were enrolled.
Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco also joined the activity.
Robredo, through the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Philippine Toy Library, vowed to provide a toy library for Wawa Elementary.
Together with her staff, the vice president stayed at the school until around 2 pm.
In a speech, Mayor Tiangco noted that the weeklong cleanup drive highlights a community’s concern for the well-being of the students and the kind of learning they get from their respective schools.
“Brigada Eskwela is a community effort that reflects everyone’s commitment to ensure that schools are ready before the academic year starts,” he said.
“Having a clean, orderly and safe school makes for a positive learning. We want our youth to get the best quality of education and this includes ensuring that their school environment is conducive for learning,” he added.
Aside from Brigada, Mayor Tiangco noted that the Navotas city government seeks to address the issue of students to classroom ratio.
“We have additional school buildings under construction. Our goal is to reduce, if not eliminate, the shifting of classes and meet the standard for students-classroom ratio,” he said.
Meanwhile, in San Pablo City, Laguna, the Department of Education will once again conduct the 2018 Brigada Eskwela from May 28 to June 2, with the theme “Pagkakaisa Para sa Handa, Ligtas at Matatag na Paaralan Tungo sa Magandang Kinabukasan.”
SM City San Pablo will be adopting Sta Monica Public Elementary School for this year’s Brigada Eskwela 2018. Five years ago, SM Foundation donated two classrooms to Sta. Monica, allocated to incoming Grade 1 students in the area, and thus SM San Pablo Admin employees will return there to volunteer.
The Brigada Eskwela is the National Schools Maintenance Week that aims to bring together all education stakeholders to participate and contribute their time, effort, and resources to prepare public school facilities for the opening of the school year in June.
SM Foundation will be taking care of the upkeep of these classrooms and SM City San Pablo Admin people will be joining in support of the advocacy of the foundation, true to its commitment of making public schools clean, safe and conducive for learning.