Schoolchildren in far-flung Pisompongan village spent the night in their classrooms as heavy rain that started at 3 p.m. Tuesday swelled the river they needed to cross to get home.
The village is about 20 km from Midsalip town, the center of Zamboanga del Sur.
Gideon Goc-ong, principal of the Pisompongan Integrated School (PIS), said that teachers decided to keep about 100 of their pupils from kindergarten to Grade 10 safe inside their school buildings, as it was too dangerous for them to cross the river.
Months ago, the viral video of the school children crossing the raging river at the height of flooding caught the attention of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who, in his State of the Nation Address in July, instructed the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (Opapru) to make use of the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (Pamana) program to put up a bridge in Barangay Pisompongan.
Although Opapru already turned over P48 million of the P60 million bridge project budget on September 29, it would still take four to six months for the bridge project to be completed, Peace Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said earlier.
Goc-ong said the teachers provided the kids with hot meals and kept them safely inside the classrooms for the night.
Through a handheld radio, the school also contacted purok leaders to inform parents that the students were kept safely at school due to the swollen river