MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/20 January) – Bukidnon Gov. Jose Ma. R. Zubiri Jr. has ordered the suspension of classes from the preschool to high school levels in the entire province due to heavy rains spawned by Tropical Depression Agaton.
Zubiri, as quoted by Hansel Echavez, chief of the Public Affairs, Information and Assistance Office of the provincial government, issued the order this morning.
The order covers both private and private schools in the province’s two cities and 20 towns.
Echavez, based on the Philippine Information Agency –Bukidnon dispatch as of 8a.m. Monday, said the suspension “holds until further notice.”
Malaybalay and other parts of Bukidnon have experienced continuous rains for over a week already.
Allan Comiso, head of the Malaybalay City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Center, told MindaNews that so far there had been no evacuations, not even preemptive ones, in the city.
“We are ok,” Comiso said in an SMS on Sunday night.
In Impasugong town, however, 20 families fled Barangay Sayawan after a landslide destroyed a house in the area, Ma. Leah Barquez of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said via telephone Monday.
Barquez said they had received no other reports of flooding or landslide incidents throughout the province so far.
She said they had been on a 24-hour watch since the arrival of the low pressure area which later developed into a tropical depression.
Bukidnon was not included in the list of provinces where a storm signal has been raised. (Walter I.
Balane/MindaNews)