Leftist legislators on Thursday sought a congressional investigation into the reported profiling of school personnel by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
At the same time, ACT Teachers Representatives Antonio Tinio and France Castro condemned the alleged monitoring by police of members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers.
READ: CHR picks up cudgels for teachers in profiling case
“The intelligence gathering being conducted by the Philippine National Police against the members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers is a grave violation of constitutionally guaranteed rights to self-organization, freedom of expression, assembly and privacy,” the lawmakers said in a resolution.
“With the continuing profiling of the PNP against the members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, the PNP continues to criminalize legal organizations calling for legitimate demands for salary increase and those fighting for teacher’s rights and welfare.”
Castro said the Alliance of Concerned Teachers is a national organization of teachers and education support personnel “with a long track record of working for the economic and political well-being of teachers and all other education workers as well as for genuine social transformation.”
“The tokhang-style intelligence profiling by the PNP has caused great concern and psychological distress for the safety and security of ACT members and leaders.
“ACT members are fearing… further harassment, intimidation, filing of trumped up cases and death threats as a result of the profiling being conducted by the PNP,” Castro added.
The resolution noted that based on the initial survey of ACT as of Jan. 12, ACT has already received 11 verified incidents of harassment and profiling in different regions.
“ACT Philippines and ACT Teachers Party-list continue to receive accounts of harassment and profiling by the police against ACT members despite the clamor and the strong objection of public school teachers,” Tinio added.
ACT on Thursday asked the Court of Appeals to stop the PNP from continuing its profiling of its public and private school teacher members.
In a petition, the ACT sought the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order to stop the PNP from conducting an inventory of all teachers who belong to ACT.
The ACT through its national chairperson Joselyn Martirez and secretary general Raymond Basilio also appealed to the CA to declare the memo issued by the PNP’s intelligence units last month as unconstitutional.
The ACT argued that the PNP’s action violated their constitutional right to association, right to assembly and to petition the government for redress of grievances, right to privacy, freedom of expression and right to protection to labor.
They group said the PNP’s action against them cannot be justified because they are not involved in any criminal activity.
“Petitioners’ militant orientation and affinity with progressive groups do not constitute acts contrary to law. Neither do its salutary advocacies warrant any state infringement and curtailment of their right to freely associate,” the petitioners said.
“All that petitioners have done are in furtherance of the rights and interests of teachers who have long been a marginalized and oppressed sector in the Philippines. Teachers, as we know, receive the lowest salaries among the ranks of professionals. They are exploited by their employers, whether in the public or private sectors, through long working hours and oversized classes, and are often deprived of benefits, even those that are mandated by law,” ACT said.
They also emphasized that it has, in fact, a party-list group that participated in the last three elections and “has sponsored a number of House measures espousing the right to an education that inculcates love of country, develops scientific thinking and is responsive to the cause of the marginalized and underrepresented majority of the people.”
“Instead of being recognized for their civic contributions, petitioners’ members have been subjected to red-baiting in a manner taken out of the page of McCarthy’s book. Petitioners, like many other organizations of similar nationalist leanings, have been falsely and maliciously tagged as ‘communist fronts’ or ‘terrorists’ on account of their political beliefs and dissension to the current administration,” they said.
ACT told the CA that police profiling has already been a “chilling effect” on their members.
“In some chapters of petitioner ACT, not a few members have already expressed their fears of being publicly known as ACT members and as such expressing their critical views of the current regime,” the petition said. “Police officers descending on schools have cast a shadow of fear upon law-abiding teachers, principals, other school personnel, even children, especially in light of communities’ bad experience with PNP’s Tokhang operations, which also employ listing of individuals and profiling as initial stages.”
The teachers group also said the PNP order violates the Data Privacy Act, which safeguards the right to privacy of every individual.
Reacting to the petition, the PNP urged members of ACT to “dissociate themselves from the terrorist organization which has been using the ranks of Filipino educators to further their evil-minded cause—to overthrow the government.”
In a statement, PNP spokesman Chief Supt. Benigno Durana said the PNP recognizes ACT as a legitimate union of teachers in the Philippines since it inception in 1982.
“But they ceased to enjoy this recognition when the enemies of the state proclaimed ACT as one of their own—as among the front organizations under its wings that work in support of the forces of the armed revolution,” Durana said, referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.
He said no less that CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison identified ACT as sharing the communist movement’s objective of overthrowing the duly constituted government through armed revolution.
PNP chief Oscar Albayalde, meanwhile, denied that the police have been tagging students and teachers as communists.
Earlier, University of the Philippines Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan urged the police to stop labeling students and teachers as communists.
“It’s not red-tagging. It was not a policy of the PNP or the government to red-tag anybody or any organization for that matter. It’s not red tagging… that’s how they say it always,” Albayalde told reporters.
Albayalde said he respects teachers and even ordered the supposed profiling of educators to stop.
