THE SCRIBE’S CORNER Physically reporting of teachers

An article written by Claudeth Mocon Ciriaco published in Business Mirror on May 22, 2020 quoted DepEd Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones saying that teachers are not required or forced to report physically in schools on June 1, 2020 onwards.

The said article also quoted the DepEd Secretary saying that DepEd was called and still being called ‘cruel’ and ‘unreasonable’ by teachers and parents for the said decision of pegging June 1 as the first day of service for teachers and August 24 as the first day of class. The said dates formed part of the 16 pages Calendar of Activities for SY 2020-2021 proposed by DepEd after series of consultations and was approved by the National IATF on Emerging Infectious Disease.

However, Secretary Briones stressed that teachers may return to work beginning June 1 either “virtually” or “physically” depending on the prevailing situations in their locality. She even reiterated that physical reporting may be possible in areas where there is no single Covid-19 case where she based on the Department of Health (DOH) earlier report that there are over 40 provinces in the country with no reported cases of Covid from the start or in the past weeks.

Granting that the locality has no single case but physical reporting as stressed by the Secretary must be in compliance with the DOH guidelines and the Inter-Agency Task Force.

The Secretary even mentioned in numerous instances when she and her designated spokespersons, Undersecretary and Chief of Staff Nepomuceno Malaluan and Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla were interviewed in the various TV and radio programs and DepEd’s own virtual press conference that the teachers can report online or physically on the first day of June and said that the department never imposed its 900,000 teachers to troop to schools as warm bodies.

Briones corrected recent FB post by some quarters that physical reporting is irrevocable and labeled it as untrue. She lamented that despite their numerous explanations, some quarters still insist that DepEd is insisting that they report physically.

In Paragraph 13 of the “Implementing Guidelines on the DepEd School Calendar and Activities for School Year 2020-2021” it only said that teachers shall start rendering service on June 1, 2020 to attend orientation and training activities on the utilization of the distance learning delivery modalities, prepare instructional materials, and plan the organization of classes in consideration of the learning delivery modalities to be employed.