LA TRINIDAD, Benguet– The Benguet State University (BSU) recently approved the earlier requests of the provincial and municipal inter-agency task forces for the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases to extend the use of some of its facilities as quarantine and isolation units for probable and suspected Coronavirus Disease (COVID) 2019 patients and frontliners until the end of the year.
BSU president Dr. Felipe S. Comila stated that allowing the use of some of its facilities as quarantine and isolation centers for COVID cases and fronliners is part of the institution’s commitment to help in the government’s overall anti-COVID response and its corporate social responsibility.
BSU’s Gladiola Center was earlier designated for the use of frontiners, the International Guest House at the Alumni Center was devoted as one of the provincial temporary treatment and monitoring facility (TTMF) while its Bektey facility is also being used as a municipal isolation facility of La Trinidad.
He assured the provincial and municipal inter-agency task forces that BSU will always be willing to extend whatever available assistance that is possible for the effective and efficient implementation of the government’s anti-COVID response because the education sector was also heavily impacted by the enforcement of various levels of community quarantine to contain the spread of the virus in the whole province.
For the institution, BSU Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Imelda Olatic-Degay disclosed that the faculty and staff had also been instrumental in the implementation of the university’s anti-COVID response activities that paved the way for the achievement of the prescribed goals and objectives of the institution in minimizing the prevalence of cases within the institution.
She commended the BSU faculty and staff in the different colleges for thinking out of the box and spending their personal resources just to be able to sustain the delivery of instruction to their students during the implementation of flexible learning as part of the efforts to contain the spread of the virus among the students and teachers.
Degay claimed that the faculty and staff will continue to explore available possibilities that will contribute in the efforts of the university to enhance the implementation of flexible learning in the coming semesters while awaiting the results of the government’s efforts to vaccinate most of the populace and achieve herd immunity to allow the situation to normalize.
According to her, the faculty and staff are now being required to produce their modules for their subjects to ensure the availability of substantial modules that will be used as references by the students in the future.
BSU owns most of the landholdings in the municipality with a total land area of over 605 hectares which are mostly within the heat of the valley. However, most of its landholdings were already invaded by informal settlers that left only 200 hectares as lands to be clear from conflicts while the rest are now being taken back by the university through litigations with the courts and the various quasi-judicial bodies. By HENT
