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Senate panels recommend police presence in schools, checking student activities amid NPA recruitment


Two committees at the Senate have recommended police presence inside schools and scrutiny of student activities inside and outside the campus “to ensure their security, safety and well-being” amid the so-called recruitment of minors into the communist movement.

Committee Report No. 10 by the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, chaired by Senator Ronald dela Rosa, and National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, chaired by Senator Panfilo Lacson, was released following an inquiry into the missing minors who were allegedly enticed to join by leftist organizations into joining the New Peoples Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The report will be sponsored in plenary for debates.

The report recommended, among others:

  • Increased/intensified interal security enforcement in schools
  • Police visibility around the within campus premises
  • Strict regulations on issuance of IDs
  • Study possible liability of school administration and teachers
  • Allow the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police to conduct lectures to students and parents, and career orientation on the law enforcement sector
  • Regular review of academic curriculum / modules, and monitoring and evaluation of school activities:
  • Filing of charges, when there is evidence, against the leftist leaders
  • Investigation of allegations against teachers

“Amidst threats of terrorism, prevalence of recruitment of students as armed
combatants, increased criminality rates, reported incidence of drug-related
problems within the campus, there is a justified need for the school authorities to
occasionally allow the presence of a reasonable number of police forces in the
school premises at an acceptable designated time,” the report said.

It added that there is a “need ... to scrutinize the activities of the youth, specially the student sector, be it inside or outside the campus, so as to ensure their security,
safety and well-being.”

The report urged the Commission on Higher Education and Department of Education to look into “possible liabilites of school administration and teachers” of the universities where the missing minors were enrolled.

It said that DepEd and CHED should also investigate allegations against teachers “who instigate their students to participate in rallies and street demonstrations that advocate radical and subversive ideologies.”

The report also named several students leaders and a party-list representative, Sarah Elago, as the “recruiters of the minors,” who should be charged when there is sufficient evidence. —Joahna Lei Casilao/LDF, GMA News

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