Probers of fatal field trip find violations by BSU, travel agency

A fact-finding committee on Wednesday said the Bulacan State University and the travel agency it contracted committed several violations in connection with last week's field trip where seven students drowned.

According to the panel, the BSU failed to comply with the Circular Memorandum 17-2012 of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) mandating colleges and universities to inform CHED of the nature of their field trips at least a month before the opening of the academic year.

“With this case, it turned out that no report was sent to CHED,” said retired judge Manuel Siyangco, the head of the panel, during the day's hearing of the House committee on higher and technical education. 

Asked by Pasig Rep. Roman Romulo, the committee's chairman, if the university was aware of such memorandum, BSU president Mariano De Jesus admitted that though he was aware of the memorandum, he failed to check whether the dean of the BSU’s Faculty of Tourism was able to inform the CHED about the trip.

“May pagkukulang on my part in the sense that I failed to check on the faculty’s compliance,” De Jesus said.

Another violation cited by the fact-finding committee was the failure of BSU and the travel agency Adventours Exchange to comply with the Bulacan government’s Ordinance No. 07-2013, which mandates universities and travel agencies to coordinate with local government unit prior to the trip.

De Jesus, however, said that based on the information given to him by the dean of the Faculty of Tourim,  Adventours coordinated with the local government of San Miguel, Bulacan.

He, however, said he was not aware if the local government was provided with the itinerary of the trip.

Other violations found by the fact-finding committee were the following:

• – Lack of guidelines defining the responsibility of the faculty advisers of the Federation of Accelerating Students of Tourism; (FAST), a duly recognized college organization in the BSU that organized and conducted the trip;
• – Lack of medical clearance for students;
• – Lack of supervision of the students by faculty members during the trip;
• – Lack of emergency rescue and first aid team in the vicinity;
• – Claims by students that the field trip was compulsory for their grade;
• – Waiver/consent form signed by the parents or guardians did not specify the itinerary;
• – Lack of permit/ clearance from the local government unit

The report also said the BSU cannot entirely put the responsibility to Adventours or to FAST, a student organization.

“While the trip was initiated and organized by the student organization FAST, the trip was adopted as a class activity by the organization’s advisers. Thus, nearly all first year students joined the same. It was also approved by the school authorities,” the summary of the initial report of the fact-finding committee said.

Siyangco said the committee will finish its full investigation on the incident in the next three days and submit its findings before the CHED and the House committee on higher and technical education next week.

Meanwhile, CHED commissioner Ruperto Sangalang said they recently launched an independent investigation on the incident.

He said that some of their initial findings jived with the report of the fact-finding committee, particularly the lack of proper coordination of BSU with the LGU, lack of report about the trip submitted to CHED, and the lack of guidelines given to students and faculty members about the trip. —KBK, GMA News