Security Bank Foundation assisted De La Salle Philippines in addressing its need for classrooms for its mission school in Bagac, Bataan, St. Jaime Hilario School – De La Salle Bataan, with the construction of a two-storey, six-classroom school building turned over last November 20, 2019. The Security Bank Foundation school building will provide permanent classrooms to the school’s senior high school students who have been sharing classrooms with the elementary and junior high school departments.
The school president, Br. Iñigo Riola, FSC, retold the story of how Security Bank Foundation came to the picture of helping St. Jaime Hilario School on their lack of classrooms. “On October 2017, Br. Victor Franco (Chair of the Board of Advisers of St. Jaime Hilario School – De La Salle Bataan) informed me of the possibility of asking the assistance of Security Bank Foundation, through its Chairman, Mr. Rafael Simpao, Jr., to build a new classroom building for our school. Mr. Simpao and Br. Franco were classmates at Taft. I then wrote Mr. Simpao on January 18, 2018, Feast of St. Jaime Hilario, to formally request for a senior high school classroom building. Six months later, Security Bank Foundation team visited De La Salle Bataan one stormy morning and the rest is history. Thank you very much Security Bank Foundation,” Br. Riola narrated.
“The school building donation was actually prompted by a group of a classmates of mine, which at that point of time, was raising funds for the construction of classrooms. I heard their initial estimated cost for one single classroom and I said that is too much because we have been building classrooms and donating these to public schools,” explained Rafael F. Simpao, Jr., Security Bank Foundation Chairman. “Though St. Jaime Hilario School is a private school, its primary purpose is to provide quality education to students who are children of indigent families of farmers and fishermen in the municipality of Bagac, Bataan,” added Simpao.
The same alumni group of Br. Franco and Simpao, The Association of De La Salle College High School Class ’61 and Grade School Class ’57, raised funds for forty (40) laptops to be used by the school’s senior high school students and were also turned over last November 20, 2019.
“In behalf of the entire Lasallian community, I would like to thank Security Bank Foundation. They have donated this school building because they believe that education is the best way to help and uplift the lives of the marginalized. To our dear students, the reason why St. Jaime Hilario School exist is because of you. You will be nurtured in this building but as you nurture, as you form, and as you learn, bear in mind that you have to do your best in your studies and you have to show respect and appreciation of this structure. Keep it in order and clean all the time,” Auxillary Visitor of Lasallian East Asia District, Br. Felipe Belleza, FSC highlighted.
Through its Build a School, Build a Nation: The Classrooms Project, Security Bank Foundation has been addressing classrooms shortage and improving the quality of basic education in the country. Since 2011, Security Bank Foundation has already turned over 489 classrooms benefitting 94 schools in 51 cities and municipalities nationwide.
To know more about the Security Bank Foundation, visit www.securitybank.com/foundation.