Mayor’s order for school transfer slammed
CAN a mere executive order of a local government official compel the relocation of students and pupils from one school campus to another?
This legal question became the central issue during the hearing for the preliminary injunction on the civil case at the sala of Regional Trial Court Judge Hermogenes Fernandez of Branch 56, filed by the local government of Bayambang against officials of the Department of Education last October 23.
The Office of the Solicitor General’s lawyer James Cundangan, representing defendants Pangasinan 1 Schools Superintendent Alma Ruby Torio and Danilo Lopez, principal of the Bayambang 1 Central School, raised the issue as he asserted that it is the DepEd alone that has authority and jurisdiction over issues related to its mandate, schools and education.
The OSG lawyer submitted a position paper opposing the preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiff that has affected some 2,000 pupils caught in the crossfire in an issue involving commercial interests of the town.
Provincial Legal Officer Geraldine Baniqued representing the plaintiff, municipality of Bayambang represented by Mayor Ricardo Camacho, defended the issuance of the Executive Order No. 25, series of 2013 that ordered the transfer of some 2,000 pupils of the Bayambang 1 Central School to a new site.
Baniqued said the old campus posed a health hazard since the old school building was dilapidated and has become a breeding place for mosquitoes that can cause a dengue epidemic.
She went on to describe the advantages and benefits that the students derive from the new campus but Candungan asserted that it is not the conditions of the school buildings but whether an executive order of a mayor can transfer a school that remains the central issue in the controversy.
Baniqued manifested that Mayor Camacho did not unilaterally decide to issue the executive order but pointed out that the transfer was the clamor of personnel, teachers and even the school principal that this is ‘the best and most practical thing to do.”
“If indeed an executive order can be issued to transfer a school, then there is nothing that can stop other town executives to issue the same since public schools in their areas on the basis alone that these are also dilapidated, prone to flooding and their pupils under threat dengue,” Candungan insisted.
The case arose when Torio initially defied the executive order by refusing to transfer the pupils but eventually recalled her order when the RTC issued a Temporary Restraining Order on Oct. 7, 2013 restraining the defendants from defying the implementation of the executive order.
Consequently, some 2,000 pupils of the school were moved to the new site last Oct. 10, where a brand new u-shaped two-storey building with a quadrangle in the middle and a covered court at the back was already built on a more than two-hectare lot purportedly owned by one William Chua, a businessman from Dagupan.
During the hearing, only a consultant in the office of Mayor Camacho was presented as the plaintiff’s witness who attested that the mayor not only wrote Secretary Armin Luistro but also discussed the issue in his office in Manila.
Present at the hearing were rival members of the Parents Teachers and Community Association, one led by the president, Alex Medrano supporting the transfer, and the other by their auditor, Nelson Borillo, opposing it.
Meanwhile, the TRO issued by the court to the DepEd officials will expire today, Oct. 27.
If the court grants the plaintiff’s prayer for preliminary injunction, the pupils will remain in the new school and if not they will go back to their old school.
Chua reportedly intended to swap all these with the prime property occupied by the old school along the highway which is a good location of a shopping mall.
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