LINGAYEN - - - Gov. Amado T. Espino, Jr. expressed his appreciation to various groups from both the private and public sectors for the outpouring of support they have extended to the province after typhoon ‘Cosme’ recently devastated Pangasinan leaving billions of pesos of damages in agriculture and infrastructure.

These entities who have helped the victims in cash or in kind include ABS-CBN (relief goods), Province of Tarlac (relief goods), Nepo Mall-Angeles City (P100,000), Engr. Rosendo So (P100,000), Mr. Dave Sanchez (P100,000), Philippine-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (Pangasinan Chapter) (P100,000), DZRH Radio Network (relief goods), PMA Class ’72 and Smart Communications (P235,000 worth of construction materials), PHILHEALTH (P500,000), Province of Bulacan (P100,000) and Philippine Tourism Authority Employees (P200,000).

The governor, disclosed that the provincial government is exerting all efforts to assist all the affected local government units (LGUs) especially those hard hit areas.

To further reach the grassroots, he assured that the provincial government is closely coordinating with the barangay captains to help assess the needs of those who were affected by the typhoon fury.

As of May 27, the PDCC has reported a total of P3.5 billion damage to agriculture and P800 million to public infrastructure for a total of P4.3 billion damage to public infrastructures.

The deadly fury of Cosme damaged 123 thousand residential houses and ended the lives of 39 people.

Affected schools in the province have proposed to move the opening of classes to later date to give way to the repair and rehabilitation of affected school buildings. Reports form the PDCC show that there were 1,651 classrooms partially damaged and 522 classrooms totally damaged posting an estimated cost of damages to almost P592 million.

Earlier, the provincial government distributed P200 thousand each for the hard hit towns to jumpstart repair and rehabilitation of damaged classrooms.

The mayors promised to shell out their own calamity funds for the repair of their respective schools.(Ruby R. Bernardino)