Pampanga lawmaker wants classroom shortage addressed

ANGELES CITY – “I will not stop until we get the funds needed to build 444 classrooms in public schools ensuring the education of our present and future children.”

Thus said First District Rep. Carmelo Lazatin as his project dubbed “Kabahagi Ako sa Handog Silid Aralan Tugon sa Kaunlaran” is just 215 classrooms short of completing the targeted 444 schoolrooms for this city and the towns of Mabalacat and Magalang.

The education summit pushed by Lazatin and initiated by Education Sec. Armin Luistro wanted to raise some P300 million. It initially raised some P178 million when it was launched at Clark last June 23.

This came as Mayor Edgardo “Ed” Pamintuan of this city expressed disappointment over the failure of Clark Development Corp. president and CEO Felipe Antonio Remollo to attend the summit held at Stotsenberg Hotel.

“Remollo’s non-appearance or any representative is a let-down, and to think, it’s a cabinet secretary’s show,” said Pamintuan in a text message.

“Together with Mayor Marino Morales of Mabalacat, we had a meeting with CDC President Remollo, who promised to organize a meeting with Clark locators on his expense to convince locators to adopt a school,” Lazatin said.

Earlier, participants of the summit assailed Remollo’s failure to attend the summit which was launched for the first time in the province’s first district.