MANILA – Emphasizing the importance of education for children, President Rodrigo R. Duterte says he plans to buy transistor radios worth Php 300 to be distributed to children in remote barangays throughout the country.
The president made this comment during his late night press briefing with members of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF), Monday evening, to seal the fate of major cities in the country about community quarantine. He said “classes will start August 24 but still there is no face-to-face session until we get the vaccine because Covid is still there, instead we will use the blended learning approach and part of this learning strategy is the distance and online learning using communications technology and digital devices.”
“Sa far-flung areas, na walang TV, cell phone, wala lahat, ito ‘yung mahirap. Kung mayroon lang sana silang radyo, maski radyo lang na hindi naman mahal, 300 pesos sabi ni Secretary Briones, kung magtagal ito talaga, we might buy the radios and give these to the barangays para yong mga mahihirap may komunikasyon sila sa teacher nila,” (It is difficult in far-flung areas where there are no TV, cell phones, nothing at all. If there is a radio unit, even the cheapest one, that costs about 300 pesos according to Secretary Briones, because if the situation will remain to be this way, we might buy radios and give these to barangays so that those poor students can have communication with their teachers,) President Duterte said.
He further asked to be given until the end of the week so that he could find money to buy radios and other education materials needed by school children. “We don’t have money right now, maybe by the end of the week I will be able to find money to buy transistor radios to be distributed throughout the country. We might not bring the radios to all barangays, but at least we tried to reach out,” Duterte conduced.
