Quezon City Vice Mayor Ma. Josefina Belmonte-Alimurung, also known as Joy Belmonte, on Thursday issued an apology over the “late” announcement of the suspension of classes in the city’s schools amid inclement weather.
Belmonte is acting mayor while Mayor Herbert Bautista is abroad on an official trip.
Especially in social media, irate parents and netizens expressed displeasure over the trouble they had to go through preparing their kids for school because of the absence of a prompt announcement to suspend classes.
In a post on the social medium Facebook, Belmonte explained that she and her staff had relied heavily on the weather advisory of the state weather bureau, Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, or PAGASA, in arriving at the decision whether or not to suspend classes.
The announcement of the suspension of classes was finally released at 11:15 a.m., which the public had deemed too late as the students had already gone to schools, many of which had already, at their own discretion called off classes for the day.
Later in the day, Acting Mayor Belmonte likewise posted her apology, thus:
She reasoned that she and her disaster management staff wanted the important decision to be made in an evidence-based process, and they were relying on data and advisories from PAGASA.
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