The Typhoon called Yolanda, Part 2 of 3 (Day 41)
by Rey Laguda(This is the 41st day of 50-day journey of DepEd Undersecretary Rey Laguda as being serialized here with his permission, culled from his Facebook account - Blogger/owner)
Day 2
Sleeping at Leyte Normal University’s guesthouse compound was providential because the NDRRMC command center had decided to transfer its base of operations to the provincial sports compound which was just around the corner. And so was Leyte National High School (LNHS). We had set out different tasks for the team members and split up. I went to LNHS and met up with school personnel who were present. There were several families that occupied different buildings within the school. I met Bong, who was a teacher and the designated physical facilities coordinator. The principal had not yet been accounted for together with other teachers. It was decided that LNHS was going to be DepEd’s home base since the division office was inoperable. An office was used for all teachers to sign up whenever they would show up. It was the start of a division wide accounting of DepEd personnel.
We were fortunate to have brought with us 30 liters of gasoline when we flew in to Tacloban. Gasoline was being sold at P250/liter and the lines were just so long. So I went up to a teacher who had a motorcycle and offered him two liters so that he could bring me around for the whole morning. I went to the division office to leave word and a handwritten sign saying all teachers and personnel should report to LNHS so that we could start accounting for everyone. I would then coordinate with the City offices and the other agencies to synchronize our plans. After attending the meeting with Sec Gazmin and Sec Roxas and the agency reps, I met with Peter Galvez of DND and offered DepEd personnel to help in staffing the operations center of the regional Office of Civil Defense (OCD). We also said that there was available space for military personnel to sleep in the school across so long as they helped us in cleaning up some of the flooded areas. This would also help us secure the school from possible looting. It was a win-win situation.
