AS THE WORLD commemorates International Human Rights Day, various global formations led by the Education International (EI) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) take up the plight of trade unionists and human rights defenders in the Philippines — in particular, the worsening state attacks against teacher-unionists and the entire education sector. Protests are being staged today at Philippine embassies in Brussels, Geneva, and in other countries.
Filipino teachers and education workers, led by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines, take to the frontlines to demand respect for our rights and granting of our just calls. Our battle cry, “Sweldo Itaas, Hindi Pandarahas” (raise our salaries, stop the attacks), encapsulates these demands to the government.
As a federation of education workers’ unions and organizations, we have campaigned and protested for better economic and social services but the exercise of our rights in the furtherance of the welfare of teachers, students, and the rest of the Filipino people have made us targets of increasingly fascist attacks from no less than the government.
Since the start of the year, we have documented 36 cases of illegal profiling by the PNP; national and regional leaders of our unions have been subjected to surveillance, threats, terror-tagging, and vilification; two of our regional coordinators have been incarcerated on trumped up charges; a teacher-leader have more ludicrous charges filed against her; and two of our union members had suffered a failed extrajudicial killing.
The legitimacy of our organization has not stopped the military from intervening in our legal endeavors and from launching a smear campaign against us, facilitated by no less than our very education agencies — the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education, who are both members of the Duterte administration’s counterinsurgency machinery, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). In various instances, the NTF-ELCAC, military officials, and other state agents have tagged us as terrorists in an effort to legitimize its attacks against us, meant only to curtail our rights and stifle dissent.
Meanwhile, the root of our unionism remain unheeded. Teachers remain to be among the lowest paid professionals in the country.
Our workload continue to be heavier as less and less human and material resources are provided for education. Class sizes grow bigger as our classrooms become smaller. The curriculum keeps turning for the worse — from the problematic K-12, it is now in danger of being militarized with attempts to increase military and police dictates on what is taught in our schools.
Children continue to be denied not just quality education, but in the worst cases, access to any education at all — such as in Mindanao where DepEd decided to close down 55 thriving Lumad schools per the dictate of the military and the regional counterinsurgency task force.
At the heart of teachers’ every struggle — decent pay, bigger budget, better education programs, academic freedom — is every teacher’s pledge to contribute to national development through education. Together with educators all over the world, we are dreaming and working towards the realization of every child’s right to free and quality education.
This aspiration is far stronger than and cannot be held back by any war for repression. Hand in hand with teachers from other nations, Filipino teachers will advance to fight against tyranny and for democracy and human rights. – RAYMOND BASILIO, secretary-general, Alliance of Concerned Teachers
