In September, 2005 the Sandiganbayan sentenced former Gov. Ruperto Ambil, Jr. and provincial jail warden Alejandro Apilado of Eastern Samar to 12 and 9 years in prison, respectively, for sheltering a murder suspect. They duo had connived to keep a town mayor accused of murder out of jail for 85 days. They were found guilty of graft for extending unwarranted benefits and advantage to the accused mayor.
I am citing this seemingly harmless effort of two government officials to shield another official because of a parallel case here in camarines Sur involving DepEd officials. By covering up for a married male teacher at Guijalo High School in caramoan, camarines Sur suspected to have impregnated a student in the same school before the close of last school year, DepEd officials in Camarines Sur have granted undue benefi ts and unwarranted advantage to an erring teacher to the grave detriment of public service.
Lawyers are now readying charges to be filed with the Ombudsman against Camarines Sur Schools Superintendent Emma I. Cornejo and other responsible DepEd Camarines Sur offi cials including one, Luz Prades, who was assigned to investigate the case following complaints by the Guijalo High School principal Candida Breis and the PTCA president, Francisco Purisima and even the parish priest. DepEd officials in the Division of Camarines Sur may be liable for obstruction of justice or for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
Instead of objectively ferreting out the truth, the DepEd investigating team chastised teachers who complained and who relayed the scandal to the media and to the parish priest. To cap the blatant cover-up, the investigating team led by Prades produced an affi davit signed by the girl, Catherine Huit, saying that the married teacher, Gener Versoza, was not the father of her child.
In effect, some DepEd rascals would make teachers and community leaders who reported the scandal appear as liars and PENINSULA MONITOR which published story in its July 31, 2007 issue as just having concocted the story. After receiving many reports I personally went to Guijalo High School, talked to teachers, community leaders and Fr. Joaquin Camano to confirm and validate them. I also saw the document that incontrovertibly indicated that Versoza fathered the child.
It is public knowledge in the whole town of Caramoan that versoza signed an agreement with Catherine and her mother Ana Huit that he would give a monthly support of P1,500.00 to Catherine and the child who was yet to be born when the agreement, witnessed by a town official, was executed. Obviously lack of means to pursue a case against the teacher and because a relationship had developed between the teacher, father of five to his legitimate family, and the girl who was still a minor when she graduated last March at Guijalo High School already pregnant, the girl’s family agreed to the compromise.
That affidavit was, therefore, easily obtainable but it did not at all diminish the administrative culpability of the erring teacher. By the way, if Versoza was not the father, who was? The child could not be the result of masturbation.
The investigating team was told about these facts but chose to suppress or ignore them. Prades did not need to be eyewitness in the sexual act to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. But her mind was set to defend the erring teacher.
“As professionals we must protect each other”, went a statement in the minutes of meeting by Prades’ group with the Guijalo High School teachers on September 5, 2007 to which Prades who was presiding gave no comment implying that she willfully approved covering up for misdeeds and aberrations of fellow teachers..
The opening statement of Prades in that meeting alone clearly reflected her intention when she said that she was there “not to add fire but to extinguish it”.
In that same meeting Gener Versoza expressed his resentment that teachers continued to talk about the incident which he said was a “personal” matter. Prades did not also bother to oblige Versoza to elucidate on that “personal” matter.
Misconduct, especially for a married public school teacher having a relationship with a student who was a minor at the time, is not simply a personal matter, stupid. it is a detriment to the society that abhors immorality and it erodes the trust of parents in the school system, more so now that DepEd officials have shown callous tolerance and therefore encouragement to sexual abuses of male teachers on their students. it is a basis for criminal and administrative action.
Since the scandal is public knowledge and every teacher and student in Caramoan knows what really happened would not young, innocent girls be, henceforth, terrified having Versoza as teacher?
In Guijalo High School alone, at about the same time that Versoza was having a relationship with Catherine, teachers informed PENINSULA MONITOR that another teacher was having an affair with another student, also a minor at that time. However, the other teacher being a widower, was able to marry the girl when she became pregnant. But the relationship started while the girl was a student and a minor and if DepEd officials were not just insensitive to such indiscretion this could even be a ground for disciplinary action.
Above all else, inculcating adequate sense of moral values on the students is a paramount duty of the DepEd. The school system may have deteriorated insofar as academic parameters are concerned but that is not as catastrophic as when DepEd officials condone and encourage maniacal teachers preying on young girls who are very vulnerable because of fear of their male teachers. Moreover, because of poverty of many students in rural schools teachers can dole out some cash to seduce their prospective victims.
With the attitude of DepEd officials in the case of the Guijalo High School scandal, the green light has been flashed to male teachers everywhere in the province to continue molesting their students.
A patent design on the part of DepEd Camarines Sur officials to bury the scandal all the more surfaced when Supt. Cornejo deliberately ignored two letters of PENINSULA MONITOR inquiring about the status of their investigation. The Division Office only hastily answered after 87 days when several radio stations warned she could be charged for violation of Republic Act 6713 mandating government offi ces to respond within 15 days to written inquiries from the public.
Time has come to make them realize what grievous harm they had done not only to the DepEd but to the community as well.
