News about teachers being victims of heinous crimes are slowly becoming commonplace. And what’s even worse is that some of the perpetuators are their present or previous students even inside the school premises!
If this is not alarming, then I don’t know what is.
Yes, media for one has always reported such incidents. But the sensationalism they give to other current events in the Philippines seem to have been deprived from them. Even the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) does not categorically include these as their priority cases. Maybe extra-judicial killings are more interesting a topic than law abiding citizens being mugged, abused, raped, or even brutally killed at their very doorsteps!
Rather, what they give emphasis for are the alleged crimes that we, teachers, commit which the parents and media refer to as child abuses where in fact, in previous years were only generally accepted as a forms of discipline.
When we were elementary pupils ourselves, our teachers back then used to check on our ears, nails, haircut and good grooming as a whole and get punished in subtle ways for it if we neglected them. Getting spanked with a small stick on our bottoms while lying on our stomachs on desks or getting hit with a wooden ruler on the tips of our fingers of one hand pressed together. Oh the pain and agony brought not only by physical pain but also brought by social humiliation in the classroom! But I tell you, we absolutely learned our lessons that day – to always take good care of ourselves and to not depend solely on our parents for it. You do it yourself for yourself.
Then we reached high school, where I taught we got over those things – to my surprise, they just got worse! HAHA! Punishments just got more creative: paying a peso for every offense or violation you make such as “illegally” exchanging seats with your classmate, chatting with a seatmate during class hours, or even scribbling or doodling at the back of your notebook, to name a few. And all of the proceeds, our advisers would always say, will go to our class fund to be used on our Christmas party. So you know who gets to eat a lot on that day just to get all his investments back! And in the end, we learned discipline and the value of abiding with rules and regulations of the school.
And more importantly, we never hated our teachers for that or even planned something bad against them just to get back at them, even though there were episodes we were humiliated in the classroom in front of our classmates for we knew we did something unacceptable. It only forced us to become better versions of ourselves.
But here’s the catch: our parents never made it a big deal for they saw how effective those were in helping their children learn to value things and their privileges. Those were the times, I strongly believe, education was effective as shown in student discipline.
Then fast-forward to the future. With the issuance of RA 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, RA 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act of 2004 and DepEd Order No. 40, series 2012 or better known as the DepEd’s Child Protection Policy, students seem to have developed a certain confidence and belief that they are now “untouchables” because these laws protect them against persons in authority. And yes, that includes their even their very own parents!
Having cited some of those laws and government policies to help create a “child-friendly” school only makes me realize that times, truly has changed. Once upon a time, pupils and students were afraid of their teachers out of respect because we knew they are persons of authority in the school headed by the principal. And because of that, we were always hesitant to approach them outside the classroom. We would always talk to them using “po” and “opo” and in a very respectful manner. We would certainly clear their paths once we saw them coming or walking along a corridor and of course being ready with our cheerful greetings. But now, it is very seldom you hear those stories that it makes you think, “Have the teachers lost their authority over their students? Do they fail to discipline them in schools? Or has their parents and government made their children invincible to modes of discipline?”
An adult, especially a teacher, is told by the law that he or she can’t do this nor do that to a child, but it does not tell what a child should do and can’t do to an adult or a teacher pertaining they lack the discretion for such acts because of their age. So how can someone explain such gruesome crimes done to teachers by their students? Is it just because of the lack of their good judgment? And for the teacher-victim, is there a Teacher Protection Policy that would back them up? That is the question, I convict, should also be reckoned with by our law-makers today.
By: JOVANNI B. BELMONTE | T-II | Mariveles National High School – Malaya FAB, Mariveles, Bataan
