As a public school teacher, I oppose the idea of inspecting the students' bags and lockers to schools as it invoke their right to privacy.
The proposal for a surprise inspection of bags and lockers of students is said to be a part of the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.
National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) Director Chief Superintendent Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said has came up with this idea to conduct random inspection of the learner's bags and lockers.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones has expressed concern over the proposal since that the inspection would mean that there has already an admission of suspicion on the part of the learners and the teachers as well.
Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan also said that the plan must be properly coordinated with the Department due to some considerations such as child protection policy and schools as zones of peace if there would be law enforcement operations or initiatives targeting students.
But the NCRPO Chief has clarified that police will not be the one to conduct the inspection but the teachers and officers from parent-teacher associations which would be a great burden for us teachers as we have been already suffering from tons of paperworks.
The inspections would also create a traumatic experience on students because "they are treated as suspects instead of mere learners." It also poses a grave threat to the safety and security of teachers in the community "as some students and their gangs might take revenge on the teachers" who would be at the forefront of the proposal.
Let us remember that a school is a place of learning, not of inspecting suspicious objects. This step of the Philippine National Police would certainly invoke the students' right to privacy and add another burden to teachers who would be doing such inspections. It would also greatly affect the delivery of quality instruction since that instead of building an atmosphere of peace and love, the school would become a den of suspicion.
We are not saying that DepEd is not with this war against drugs, but we must took into consideration the fact that we are also concerned with our learners. We don't want them to look at schools as a haven that will never be safe for them. There are still some other things that we can do to get rid of these illegal drugs from entering our safe zones.
Again, I denounce the idea of inspecting the bags and lockers of our students, whether they may be randomly done or regularly out of the point that it violates our students' right to privacy.
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