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00:00For the past week, eight-year-old Brian had been doing online and modular classes.
00:05His mother, a household help, had no choice but to bring her son here at her workplace
00:11because he could not attend physical classes at a nearby public school.
00:14Because it was so hot, the children could not stand the heat and they got sick.
00:44Meanwhile, they have the power to decide for themselves.
00:47The country uses heat index, or the feels-like temperature, to measure heat felt by the human body.
00:54For weeks, heat index temperatures have skyrocketed to dangerous levels, or above 40 degrees Celsius.
01:02This can cause heat stroke, heat cramps, headaches, and exhaustion.
01:06Other parts of the country have even recorded heat index of higher than 50 degrees Celsius,
01:11which the government weather bureau, Pag-asa, considers as extremely dangerous.
01:16I am here in Kamuning Elementary School, one of the public schools in Quezon City,
01:21the largest and the most populous city in the entire Philippines.
01:25It's summer afternoon, but it's unlike any other summers in the past because of extreme heat levels.
01:31The state weather bureau in the country have warned Filipinos that the coming weeks and days ahead will even be hotter.
01:37In recent weeks, a thousand schools nationwide have canceled their classes
01:43and reverted to online or blended learning as a way to protect the health of teachers and students.
01:50Via is a kindergarten teacher at this school.
01:53When Ctoday visited, she was the only teacher on campus.
01:57She had to go to school to check her students' work.
02:00When it's hot, the students will notice that they are very irritable.
02:08So we asked them to bring extra shirts.
02:11That's why when the temperature rises, we don't allow outdoor games anymore.
02:20They used to have PE, but they miss it.
02:24They miss it because there's really nothing.
02:26While blended learning allows most students to evade heat, some are not as lucky.
02:32Poor students do not have adequate ventilation at home.
02:36Another challenge is the availability of good Wi-Fi connection.
02:40It's hard, especially when there's no signal.
02:43Because when you die, you won't be able to hear the lesson.
02:49This is why many groups and politicians have called on the government to return to the old academic calendar,
02:56which starts in June and ends in March, during the summer season.
03:00It was in 2014 when the Philippines shifted its calendar to align itself with other countries.
03:06The government just recently relented to the calls for the return, but said it will do slowly.
03:12Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the chair of the Basic Education Committee, said
03:17extreme summer heat will soon be the new normal, so the government must quickly adjust.
03:21Our old calendar suits us because we're already used to it,
03:27and the kids don't go to school during the summer.
03:30And we can see, I can see it here, and many experts have said,
03:35maybe this extreme summer heat will be the new normal in our country.
03:42So that means, April-May, it will be around 35-40-45 degrees.
03:48So it's really hard for the kids to go to school,
03:52especially since almost 99% of our public schools don't have air-conditioning.
03:57Others, however, said it is not enough to just return to the old calendar to solve all the issues.
04:03After all, the extreme heat only exacerbated the long-standing problems of the education system.
04:09The challenge now is for the government to fix this while addressing climate change.
04:14Camila Lamia, C2day, Manila.
04:18www.cdc.gc.ca
04:21www.cdc.gc.ca
04:24www.cdc.gc.ca
04:27www.cdc.gc.ca