The Gabriela women’s party-list on Tuesday sought a congressional inquiry into the alarming reports on cases of sexual abuse in schools.
Meanwhile, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio has ordered an investigation into allegations that six teachers in Bacoor National High School in Cavite sexually harassed students.
Assistant Minority Leader and Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas called for a review of Republic Act 11313, or the Safe Spaces Act, amid reports on social media pertaining to faculty members accused of sexually harassing students.
Brosas issued the call following recent social media posts that went viral, involving some students and alumni of Bacoor National High School in Cavite= who shared their experiences regarding teachers allegedly making sexual advance= s on their students.
Brosas pointed out that Article V Section 21 of the Safe Spaces Law stipula= ted that all educational institutions shall address gender-based sexual harassment and online sexual harassment in accordance with the rules and procedures in their Committee on Decorum and Investigation (CODI) manual.
“The growing trend of sexual harassment perpetrated by faculty members= against young students is alarming. While we have an existing law regarding handling cases of sexual harassment, it is clearly not enough. There is a need to review the Safe Spaces Act and ensure that policies are being implemented properly in schools,” Brosas said.
Last July 2022, former students of Philippine High School for the Arts also spoke about their experiences of sexual abuse in the prestigious state art school.
“Our policy must ensure that teachers guilty of sexually harassing students are stripped of their professional license and barred from getting near schools. Moreover, we are pushing for a national database of convicted sexual predators to ensure that education institutions are well-informed not to hire sex offenders,” Brosas added.
“The allegations of sexual harassment in Bacoor National High School is very disturbing news and we are taking this very seriously. The DepEd, under the leadership of Vice President and Secretary Sara Duterte, has zero-tolerance for any form of abuse,” DepEd spokesman Michael Poa said in a text message.
“The investigation is being handled by our Regional Office, in coordination with the Schools Division Office. It is the DepEd regional director that has disciplinary jurisdiction over teaching staff,” he added.
Poa said the six teachers have been placed on “floating status.”
“There is no estimate yet as to how many students are involved or have complained. We are encouraging students to come forward,” the DepEd official added.
On Twitter, a thread that has since gone viral included screenshots of alleged Facebook Messenger exchanges between one of the teachers and his student, with the latter making inappropriate grooming comments with heavy sexual innuendo.
Twitter user @eexpresso shared the screenshots, some as old as 2014. The user said the post was originally uploaded on Facebook but got deleted.
The thread gained almost 20,000 retweets and over 30,000 reactions.
One screenshot of the supposed conversation showed a student being asked if he has had experiences with a gay person, and if he would like to “try” it.
On Twitter, Bacoor City Mayor Lani Mercado-Revilla advised victims to file a formal complaint.
“This has been reported to the DepEd Regional Office and at present ongoing investigation. The teachers involved are no longer holding classes. We will be monitoring this issue. Best if the victims/ students file formal complaints to Bacoor Schools Division Superintendent,” she said in a Twitter post.