The Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines on Wednesday lauded the Department of Education for its assurance that it would not release any information of its employees to “anyone” or even to the Philippine National Police in compliance with the Data Privacy Act of 2012.
Joselyn Martinez, ACT Philippines national chairperson, said Undersecretary and Chief of Staff Nepomuceno Malaluan vowed to protect the welfare of the teachers following the move of PNP chief Oscar Albayalde to conduct a profiling of teachers belonging to leftist groups.
DepEd has already ordered its officials not to entertain the requests of the PNP for a list of ACT-Philippines members.
According to Martinez, officers and other leaders of ACT-Philippines from Metro Manila and Rizal met with education officials and discussed the efforts of the PNP to profile their members.
“DepEd’s commitment comes particularly significant at the moment when Albayalde admitted to targeting our leaders in their surveillance project against our organization,” she said.
Last Monday, Albayalde said the were “pinpointing individuals” in connection with their intelligence gathering on the involvement of ACT with the leftist groups.
“This is a clear threat to our most resolute leaders who sacrifice time and effort to organize teachers’ unions and engage in campaign work, negotiations and lobbying to push for decent salaries, better working conditions and free, quality education while they perform their duties as classroom teachers. We bank on DepEd’s promise that it will not endanger the well-beings of their own employees,” Martinez said.
Despite Malaluan’s promise to protect their rights, Martinez said, however, that they “will not slacken in our vigilance to secure our ranks.”