The inauguration of the new Security Bank Foundation classroom building at Iloilo National High School

Iloilo City — A new two-storey, 10-classroom building has ended shifting classes for Grade 9 students at Iloilo City National High School (ICNHS), the city’s largest public high school with around 6,500 students. Security Bank Foundation, Inc. (SBFI) turned over the building in September.

For Grade 9 students, the impact was immediate. “The classrooms are specifically useful for the Grade 9 learners so we no longer have to do shifting classes,” ICNHS principal Aplha Java said.

Iloilo City Mayor Raisa Maria Lourdes S. Treñas-Chu said the project could serve as a model for faster local school construction. “I called our engineers and asked, ‘Pwede ba ang structure natin kagaya ng Security Bank? Maganda na, ang bilis pa.’ Our city needs more classrooms, and we hope we can deliver them as fast as Security Bank. We want to apply the same technology to our school projects,” she said.

The project also shows how public- and private-sector organizations can work together to address classroom shortages. Under its Build a School, Build a Nation program, SBFI funded and managed construction; A.C. Steel Industries supplied steel materials; Signify Philippines donated lights, switches, and outlets; and LBC Express, through the LBC Hari ng Padala Foundation, subsidized delivery of SBFI-provided materials. The Iloilo City government provided backfill and support for electrical loads and lines, while the Department of Education supplied classroom furniture.

SBFI Chairman Rafael Simpao, Jr. said partnerships are essential to expanding access to quality education and encouraged more organizations to support similar initiatives.

“But perseverance alone is not enough. We have learned that lasting change requires partnerships. That is why our journey has been holistic and multisectoral, because education is not the work of one institution alone, but of an entire community working together,” Simpao said.

The Iloilo project is the first of eight school buildings SBFI plans to donate in 2026. By year-end, the Foundation expects its total contribution since it began building classrooms in 2011 to reach 961 classrooms in 159 schools across 95 municipalities and cities nationwide. In Iloilo, that impact is already helping students spend more time learning and less time waiting for classroom space to become available.

For more information, visit www.securitybank.com/foundation.