'Profiling' of Alliance of Concerned Teachers members

ACT will file a motion for consideration on its petition against police 'profiling' after the Court of Appeals junked their plea citing "infirmities" in the documents attached.

"There is reasonable cause for alarm and distress among teachers, especially since state-perpetuated attacks persist despite exposés, legal cases, and local and international outrage," it says in a statement.

"It is in this context that we fervently urge the CA to take into account and give more weight to substantive considerations over technicality issues. Teachers’ fundamental rights to association, free expression, and privacy are at stake," the teachers' union also says.

Members of the Makabayan bloc at the House have filed a resolution asking the House Committee on Human Rights to hold hearings on the police memorandum to "profile" members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers.

Director General Oscar Albayalde, Philippine National Police chief, has ordered the relief of intelligence officers involved in the supposed "profiling" of members of ACT while also denying that there are orders for police to do so.

"I will check on that. As far as I'm concerned, I did not sign anything like that," he says in Filipino in a televised press briefing.

He says the intelligence officers of precincts in the Quezon City Police District and Manila Police District as well as in the Zambales Provincial Police Office have been relieved from duty pending an investigation.

"You're not supposed to leak what you are doing, if there is really an order like that, especially so if you are creating unnecessary panic among these people," he says.

He clarifies, though, that members of ACT should not be worried about being monitored if they aren't doing anything illegal.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo says the Philippine National Police has already denied that it is profiling members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, which he calls a legal organization identified with the left.

"The PNP and the president has already said there are 'legal fronts', but actually they are part of the left," he says. He says that the police may be monitoring a few members of ACT, but adds "if you're not doing anything, why should you be afraid?"

Asked what crime the teachers might be being monitored for, Panelo responds: "Rebellion? It is..."

He stresses that: "The policy is not to surveil teachers. Mahal ni presidente ang teachers. But if you are doing something illegal trabaho ng pulis i-monitor ginagawa mo."

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers will picket in front of Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police, on Monday afternoon "to expose their lies and denounce the ongoing profiling and intimidation of ACT members in public and private schools."

ACT had initially planned to hold a press conference on Monday morning on the alleged profiling but cancelled it "due to reports of several PNP officials’ denial of the order to profile teacher-unionists."

ACT said teachers also intend "to lecture the PNP on the constitutional rights of education workers to self-organization."

The Manila Public School Teachers Association will hold a separate picket-dilaogue with the Department of Education's Division Office-Manila on Monday morning. MPSTA is an affiliate member of ACT.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers is condemning what it says in an attempt by the Philippine National Police to profile its members in public and private schools.

According to an ACT statement, police officers have been approaching school officials to present supposed PNP memoranda for them to submit a list of ACT members in their schools. ACT said the police orders 

"The operations appear to be of a nationwide scale and points to the top PNP leadership as the foremost source of the order as we received similar reports from our members in Manila, Malabon, Las Pinas, Zambales, Bulacan, Rizal, Mindoro, Sorsogon, Agusan Del Sur, among others," ACT says.

"ACT is a legitimate teachers' organization with a long history of service to professional teachers, education support personnel, and the Filipino people in general. As a matter of fact, government agencies such as the Civil Service Commission, Department of Education, and Department of Labor and Employment recognize ACT and its affiliate organizations in both public and private schools," the group says.

It says the PNP's "concerted national scheme" to compile a list of ACT's members "is a clear violation of the constitutional right to self-organization, freedom of expression and assembly, and right to privacy."

"It also violates the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, and all the related laws, orders, and issuances which protect our right to self-organization and trade union rights in both public and private schools," the group adds.

According to an ABS-CBN News report on Saturday, the heads of the National Capital Region Police Office and the Manila Police District have both denied ordering police to conduct the school visits.

Photo: The STAR/Edd Gumban, file