HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TO PROBE CASE OF STUDENTS EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL BECAUSE THEY SPOKE IN ILOKANO

Laoag City Ilokano kids

     Laoag City--The regional office of the Commission on Human Rights in San Fernando, La Union will investigate the case of three students expelled from their school here because they spoke in Ilokano.

     In his letter to Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, one of two chairs of an International Committee in support of the expelled students, Atty. Romel P. Daguimol, CHR regional chief, said that the case is "very alarming and needs our immediate attention."

     Earlier, Dr. Ricardo A. Nolasco of the University of the Philippines' Department of Linguistics, wrote CHR chair Etta Rosales, about the case of three students of the Savior's Christian Academy, whose "linguistic and educational and human rights" were violated by the school. 

   The letter of Nolasco, a member of an organization of academicians and linguistics scholars that promotes the Mother-Tongue Based Multilingual Education,  prompted Rosales to order Atty. Daguimol to act with speed and dispatch on the case.

     It was learned that CHR lawyers would be sent to Laoag City this week and as soon as typhoon "Labuyo" which was passing thorugh the Ilocos region yesterday shall have left the country.

     The case arose when the students were talking among themselves in Ilocano during a break inside the SCA which strictly enforces a "Speak English Only" policy. They were made to report to the office of Rev.Dr. Brian Shah, school administrator, who allegedly berated and shouted at the students and even threatened to throw his cellphone on them.

     The students--Kleine Bautista, Carl Andrew Abadilla and Samuel Respicio, all 13 years old and Grade 8--were advised to look for another school on July 31, which they did and enrolled, except one, in other schools in Laoag City.

     The memo for the expulsion was signed by the school principal, Dr. Cristeta Pedro, a retired university professor.

     The case has caught the attention of local officials like Rep. Rodolfo Farinas of the first congressional district of Ilocos Norte. In his message in the website Taga-Laoagkami, he said that the Sangguniang Panlalawigan would be taking up the matter to be spearheaded by his daughter Ria, an SP member. 

     Meanwhile, a petition to remove for cause of Rev. Dr. Shah, a Singaporean, from his post as president of the SCA and to cause  him to leave the Philippines immediately, has been going around the social media and has gathered more than 500 signatures worldwide.

     The signatories were mostly Ilokanos in the country and in the so-called Ilokano diaspora including the Philippines' ethno-linguistc groups, academicians and scholars across the country and abroad. 

    Dr. Agcaoili, coordinator of the Ilocano program of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a native of Laoag City like his co-chair Dr. Raymund Ll. Llongson of the Community College of Leeward in Honolulu, said that copies of the petition will be submitted on August 14 to the Department of Education and the Department of Foreign Affairs. --PETER LA. JULIAN