Viral news on the restroom used as faculty room by teachers in a Cavite high school in recent weeks has put yet once again the perennial issues of classroom shortage, the attitude of authorities and the often glossed over importance of teachers in our society.
The issue came under sharp focus when Maricel Herrera, Bacoor National High School-Molino Main teacher and faculty association president, clambered up social media and raised her complaints on the lack of faculty room for teachers.
She ate her heart out that teachers, licensed and professional—many of whom have masteral degrees or units—do not have faculty rooms where they can “rest and relax” after mind-numbing hours as they individually commit to the letter of their respective lesson plans.
Beyond doubt, the viral post has reached Education Secretary Leonor Briones’ attention, explaining, with the speed of a chasing thunderclap, that using the restroom as a faculty room was the “choice” of the teachers themselves.
Said she: “They had a choice, they could hold office in the laboratory rooms but of course it is more dramatic, it is more touching if you hold it in the toilets.”
Accordingly, the Department of Education explained that the situation in Bacoor “arose when the school implemented its decision to move to single-shift classes this academic year 2019, which resulted in faculty rooms, intended initially as classrooms, needing to be “converted back into additional classrooms to realize the policy.”
Now Herrera has been threatened with a suit for exposing the faculty diegesis. But the Alliance of Concerned Teachers was quick with its fist in blasting the threat as an act of vindictiveness and abuse of authority.
Said ACT: “What Ms. Herrera is being made to suffer right now is a clear case of union repression and violation of her academic freedom.
“She is being shamed and punished for speaking truth to power, a courageous act to stand for the welfare of teachers who were plopped in a dismal condition, but the powers-that-be took offense and now threatens her employment.”
As the issue continues to develop, we cannot puff up the importance of teachers who help build castles of thoughts and bridges of images in their students, the future leaders of the community.
It is in their lesson plans and modules, to quote the Irish playwright and polemicist Bernard Shaw, where “the sole hope of human salvation lies.”