The Senate is poised to mount an inquiry into reported abuse and harassment incidents in the state-run Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) in Los Baños, Laguna.
“It is imperative that the Senate, exercising its oversight powers, initiate a thorough but expeditious investigation on the matter to ensure PHSA and other educational institutions are safe spaces, especially with the upcoming blended/face-to face-classes in August,” stated the resolution filed by Senator Risa Hontiveros.
The resolution paved the way for the Senate leadership’s referral of the case to the Senate Committee on Women and Children, Family Relations, chaired by Hontiveros, who was expected to promptly open her committee’s inquiry into reported cases of abuse and harassments at the PHSA.
In referring the resolution, the Senate leadership expects a thorough inquiry that will lead to the filing of urgent remedial legislation by Senator Hontiveros ensuing from Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality inquiry into the alleged gender-based sexual harassment, emotional abuse and other violence experienced by alumni and students of the said government-run boarding school, as well as to look into possible violations of the Safe Spaces Act.
As principal author of the Safe Spaces Act, Hontiveros earlier vowed to provide support for vital witnesses, first-hand victims who came forward and testify before the Senate committee to reveal their harrowing experiences, in the hope their testimony would lead to more effective remedial legislation to address the problem.
Hontiveros confided she earlier met with some of the first hand victims, citing information conveyed to her “a PHSA student, a minor, has formally filed a complaint against a PHSA non-teaching staff after being catcalled in November 2019 in campus.”
The senator cited a report listing that there were already other complaints filed but they were “downplayed by the PHSA Administration, brushed off as hearsay and were not entertained for failing to comply with the format required under existing Civil Service rules.” Worse, survivors of abuse claimed to have been victim-blamed, silenced, and neglected by the PHSA administrators.
She cited the Safe Spaces Act requiring schools to provide a gender-sensitive environment and confidential mechanism for the reporting and redress of grievances on matters of sexual and gender-based harassment.
The lawmaker’s resolution noted that, “If the accounts are accurate, the repeated failure of PHSA administration to address the violence and abuses is a blatant violation of the Safe Spaces Act and a flagrant disregard of the interests of PHSA students—interests they are duty-bound to protect and promote as persons reposed with special parental authority.”
Moreover, the senator stressed “the urgent need to review the reporting protocols and the procedures of the Committee on Decorum and Investigation of the educational institutions tasked to investigate and address complaints of abuse and harassment.”
She expects the upcoming inquiry to “determine the lapses and propose corresponding reforms to improve implementation of the Safe Spaces Act and other child protection policies.”
Stressing that schools are deemed “the second home of children” the senator stressed this is the very reason why schools are deemed safe and “parents like us feel a sense of security when we entrust our children to them.”
“Educational and training institutions should be our children’s safe spaces,” the senator said, reminding, “there should be no room for abuses.” -30-