Manila Bulletin – Wed, Feb 27, 2013
Not again. Just barely two weeks after the Tanay incident that killed two students, a field trip in Baguio shocked the country. Involved was the Marinduque State College. Three students, two teachers, a reliever-driver, and a tour guide died. Twenty-eight other students were hurt.
The bus carrying the students was trekking Tuba, Benguet going Manila. An early rescuer, Rafael Valencia, claims the allegedly colorum tourist bus driven by Roger Albayalde overtook another resulting in a collision with a truck going Baguio. The truck driver, Joel Bengua, reasoned that the bus was over-speeding. His statement was corroborated by Roselyn Roldan, a student survivor.
This latest incident only further polarized positions of people regarding field trips. Representative Pedro Romualdo of Camiguin and Senator Edgardo Angara called for a ban on field trips. Secretary Armin Luistro of the Department of Education and Representative Sonny Angara took the opposite view.
MORE THAN ENOUGH LAWS
The DepEd follows Order 52, Series of 2003 on field trips. It discourages visits to TV stations and malls, and encourages tours to educational sites. It highlights student safety. Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Memo Order 17, Series of 2012 not only promotes local tourism outright but also details the requirements for schools to accomplish.
We have more than enough laws to govern field trips. In relation to teachers and schools, Family Code Article 218 on special parental authority and Articles 219 on minors are applicable. Civil Code Article 2176 on negligence and Article 2180 on responsibility of employers are also relevant. With regard to travel agencies, tour guides, and drivers, Article 1733 on common carriers, Article 1755 on standard of care for passengers, and Article 1756 on injuries and deaths of passengers are to the point. Finally, Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code on imprudence and negligence is likewise applicable.
In truth, it is not the idea of field trip per se which is the problem. Young students of Japan, China, Thailand, for instance, visit their local art and science museums, temples and sites of historical significance regularly. Even elementary students from England visit mainland Europe on field trips. There are American high school students who travel abroad as part of international study tours.
THE PROBLEM
It is the culture within which we have field trips that is the bigger issue. Field trips have been trivialized by some schools which undertake these for the commissions given by tour organizers. This makes parents view field trips as downright irrelevant.
Tour agencies, meanwhile, could have helped professionalize the conduct of field trips. Yet, many tour agencies do not even have an inkling on what students really need and how to educate them best.
It is definitely better if the school itself would scout and develop itineraries. However, many teachers are not conversant and oriented enough about highly educational places like museums, historical sites, science centrums and the like. In the meantime, there are some school administrators who have other priorities than examining field trip objectives and safety of students.
AN EVEN BIGGER PICTURE
Part of the bigger picture is that our people and leaders find it alien to follow laws. This results in a thinking that it is fine to drive fast and bribe traffic officers, or buy judges if need be. Negligence causes deaths in road mishaps. Lack of discipline halts progress. Impunity kills a nation. This situation is partly historico-cultural, as we were trained to hate rules imposed on us by colonizers.
Partly, our alienation from the law is a byproduct of mis-education as our basic education curriculum professes to follow the law, without teaching us basic principles of law. Contrast this to basic education students of Europe and North America who learn from their textbooks not only the basic legal principles that govern their societies, but also the landmark jurisprudence decided by courts of law that changed the flow of their histories.
Punish all those responsible for the deaths of students and teachers involved in the Tanay and Baguio incidents. But let it be said that they died, too, because of our lack of discipline, and our lack of knowledge as well as appreciation of laws. Let it be said that after punishing those responsible, genuine justice for these victims can be finally served if DepEd and CHED will succeed in instilling in the minds of students the knowledge of basic laws, that is a giant leap in educating our nation on the imperative of the rule of law.
An alumnus and former faculty member of UP Diliman, PROF. ROLANDO S. DELA CRUZ is Founder and President of the Darwin International School System. He studied in Osaka University (Japan), the University of Cambridge (England) and at the University of Leiden (the Netherlands).
No comments:
Post a Comment