A teachers’ federation has called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to “cancel” the scheduled face-to-face seminars of the National Task Force Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in Mindoro schools.

Citing information from the letters submitted by the military to local DepEd heads, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines said that DepEd must “prohibit these activities” in line with its own department orders and memoranda.

"We call on DepEd to do its mandate and ensure that schools are free from military interference and operations,” ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio said.

ACT said that DepEd - as stated in its Department Order (DO) no. 44 series of 2005 and DO 32 series of 2019 - schools should be considered as “zones of peace.”  Given this, the group called also President Duterte to “pull out his troops” from schools.

“Immediately bar these activities from taking place in our schools and in DepEd office,” Basilio told DepEd. “Otherwise, you'll have enabled these soldiers to commit more crimes against teachers, staff, and even students,” he added.

ACT Region IV-B union vice-president Kristy Borbe said that teachers already “fear for their health and safety” on a regular basis - especially with inadequate preventive health measures in their workplaces and the worst spike yet in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.

The welfare of teachers, Borbe said, is already suffering due to the extensive demands of a “poorly implemented” distance learning. “You want us to attend face-to-face seminar of the military and for what, so we can listen to them arbitrarily redtag our union and violate our rights and freedoms? This must be stopped,” she added.

ACT argued that teachers are already overwhelmed with heavy workload doubled by the blended modes of learning, while being exposed daily to the worsening health crisis as they perform their duties and responsibilities. “They need not be subjected to more hostile work conditions with the presence of state forces at schools,” the group added.

The group also reminded DepEd of the aftermaths of allowing terrorist-tagging to “go on with impunity.” ACT noted that schools and DepEd offices must also be “demilitarized as part of pushing back against military encroachment on civilian agencies and spaces.”

Amid the surging number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, ACT also slammed the how “rabid the government is in forwarding its fascist agenda even in the education sector” - which it had abandoned throughout this health crisis.