by Ben Serrano
August 18. 2009
BISLIG CITY- All public and private colleges, high schools and elementary schools including kindergarten schools within Bislig City have suspended all its classes for ten days starting August 15 up to August 24, the City Health Office here said.
At first hours yesterday Monday morning here where students, teachers and parents were supposedly at the city streets busy going to and from schools and homes are nowhere to be found as Bislig City virtually look like a “ghost town”.
Pedi cab and other public utility vehicles’ operators and drivers are complaining of almost zero turned out of passengers.
Bislig City Mayor Dr. Alberto Tan told this writer in an interview at his office here late afternoon Monday the decision to suspend all classes in all levels of all public and private elementary, high school and college schools came after grueling hours of consultative meetings with members of the Bislig City Health Board, PTA and school officials last August 13 held at Bislig City Hall here.
The Bislig Health Board is chaired by the City Mayor with members composed of City Health Office officials, the local chapter of the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), local chapter of Philippine Nurses Association, NGO, local government and private Hospitals officials and midwife associations.
The emergency consultation meeting was called upon after results from Research Institute for Tropical Medicines (DOH-RITM) based in Metro Manila revealed seven students out of eight who have undergone earlier swab tests conducted seven days ago officially revealed the students were positive with A (N1H1) illness.
Assistant Bislig City Health Officer Dr. Guissepe Salas told this writer in an interview at his office the suspension of classes at all levels were also necessary after almost one hundred students from different schools in Bislig have shown symptoms of the Influenza-like illnesses.
At urban Barangay Maharlika National High School al
one, Dr. Salas said, almost 40% of its total school populations have shown Influenza-like Illness while at another urban Barangay San Jose National High School , 40 out of its total 108 high school students are suffering from fever with Influenza-like illness.
“Actually the regional office of the Department of Health in Caraga Region have recommended only suspension of classes in all levels at De la Salle John Bosco College and all public elementary schools in Bislig City but we, at the Bislig Health Board decided to suspend classes in all private and public schools in the city to give time to school authorities to sanitize their schools due fear of spread of this highly contagious disease”, Assistant City Health Officer Dr. Guissepe Salas said.
Bislig City Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Lucia Serrano Castro issued Division Memorandum Order No. 250 series of 2009 addressed to all school administrators dated August 14 to follow recommendations of the Bislig City Health Board to suspend classes at all levels of private and public schools within the Schools Division of Bislig for ten days effective August 15.
Castro justified her memorandum order saying “this is to prevent spread of the infection and for the school administration to conduct sanitation and decontamination measures of the school premises”.
Castro also spelled out thirteen other rural and rural school barangays whose classes are also suspended due to A(N1H1) scare.
Records obtained by this writer from the Bislig City Schools Division Office claimed there are total 42 public and private elementary and high schools under the Bislig City Schools Division.
The private and public colleges who also suspended classes are under supervision of the Commission on Higher Education or CHED.
Among those who suspended classes were De La Salle John Bosco College, St. Vincent De Paul College, Andres Soriano College , Recaredo Castillo College and Southern Technological Institute of the Philippines or STIIP.
Bislig City is once the home of Asia’s biggest pulp and wood processing plant opened and operated in the 50’s by American entrepreneurs. It then went to different hands who operated it transferring from one operators to the other until it went bankrupt due to huge debts amounting to millions of dollars.
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