Teachers have voices too

By Herman M. Lagon

A teacher finishes checking 47 notebooks, answers three messages from parents, prepares tomorrow’s slides, and finally gets home. At 9:17 p.m., she opens Facebook and writes that the flooding in her barangay has become unbearable. Someone comments, “Ma’am, teacher ka pa naman. Huwag kang magreklamo.” Another tells her that teachers should always be role models. Before long, what began as an opinion about drainage has somehow become a referendum on her fitness to teach. Apparently, the chalk dust follows you home.

That little absurdity came to mind after the DepEd again reminded its personnel this August to exercise “professionalism, prudence, and sound judgment” on social media. The August 11 memorandum pays particular attention to posts involving learners, classroom activities, school premises, and official functions. It reinforces DepEd Order No. 49, s. 2022, and DepEd Order No. 6, s. 2026, including safeguards involving learner privacy and personally identifiable information. The department also says personal accounts do not automatically free personnel from professional obligations when their posts are connected to their work or identify them as DepEd employees.

Much of that is reasonable. A child should not become somebody’s TikTok prop simply because the teacher wants views. A learner’s embarrassing mistake does not belong on Facebook for strangers to laugh at. Classroom time is for learning. Confidential information stays confidential. School equipment is not a personal production studio. Teachers should think twice before turning anger at a colleague into a public post, especially without knowing the whole story. RA 6713 rightly asks public servants to act with professionalism, integrity, and respect.

But professionalism should never become another word for silence.

Teachers do not surrender their citizenship when they enter government service. An appointment paper does not erase the right to speak, even if public service places legitimate limits on how that right is exercised. But there remains an important difference between regulating conduct that harms learners or compromises public service and treating every uncomfortable opinion from a teacher as “unprofessional.” DepEd itself made that distinction when controversy arose over DO 49 in 2022. Its then-spokesperson Michael Poa said constructive criticism and grievances were not prohibited and emphasized that the order was not intended to infringe freedom of expression.

That distinction deserves protecting.

Imagine a teacher posting that her classroom has 50 pupils but only 35 usable chairs. Another asks why learning materials arrived months late. A third writes about the exhaustion of handling paperwork after spending the whole day teaching. Someone questions a proposed education policy. Another discusses corruption, historical distortion, poverty, bullying, climate change, or the condition of public transportation and flood control projects. These statements can be wrong, poorly argued, or unpopular. They can also be valuable contributions to public conversation. The answer to a questionable opinion is not automatically an administrative complaint. Sometimes it is simply a better argument.

There is another distinction we often blur: political neutrality is not political emptiness. Republic Act No. 6713 requires government workers to serve people fairly regardless of party affiliation. That is crucial. A teacher must not give the child of a favored candidate a higher grade or treat another learner badly because her parents support the other camp. The classroom should never become a recruitment headquarters. Authority over students must not be used to pressure them into adopting a teacher’s politics. But fairness in public service does not require teachers to stop thinking about public affairs. Serving the public fairly does not require having no opinions. A teacher can treat everyone equally and still question education budgets, corruption, human rights issues, or why that barangay road remains broken after three rainy seasons.

There is a difference between dissent and disrespect.

We ask students to examine evidence, question claims, and become responsible citizens. We cannot teach them to find their voice on Monday, then tell their teachers to lose theirs on Tuesday. A democracy cannot teach critical thinking entirely in the abstract. At some point, somebody has to ask the difficult question outside the examination paper.

This does not give educators a blank check online. Freedom of expression has never meant freedom from responsibility. A teacher who posts an identifiable learner’s humiliating moment is dealing with something far more serious than personal expression. Knowingly spreading lies, exposing confidential records, harassing colleagues, misusing government resources, or making students unwilling social-media extras clearly crosses the line. DepEd is on solid ground when its rules address these concrete harms.

More delicate is the call to protect the Department’s “reputation and honor.” Reputation matters, but so does the freedom to say when something needs fixing. An honest critic is not necessarily an enemy of the institution.

Formal grievance channels have their place, especially for personnel disputes. They should help solve problems, not become the only place where legitimate concerns may be spoken. Posting an office quarrel at midnight while furious rarely produces wisdom by breakfast. Yet internal channels and public discourse serve different purposes. A complaint about one supervisor may belong in a grievance procedure. A teacher’s informed opinion that the country needs smaller classes, better reading interventions, stronger child protection, or less administrative paperwork is also a matter of legitimate public concern. One channel should not automatically cancel the other.

Social media makes all of this messier because the old walls have collapsed. Once, a teacher could complain about politics over coffee with colleagues, sing badly at a videoke party, wear something silly at a reunion, and dance at a fiesta without the possibility of 80,000 strangers watching by lunchtime. Today, one phone can turn an ordinary private moment into public evidence presented before the Court of Facebook. Teachers therefore do need an extra measure of judgment. Before posting, a useful set of questions might be simple: Am I harming anyone? Am I exposing a learner? Am I sharing something confidential? Am I using my position unfairly? Is what I am saying true, or have I checked it? Would I still stand by these words tomorrow?

Notice what is missing from that list: Will everybody approve?

Nobody can satisfy that standard. One person thinks teachers should never dance online. Another dislikes teachers wearing swimsuits on vacation. Someone objects when a teacher posts political commentary. Another thinks teachers should not complain about salaries. Follow the logic far enough and teachers become public property: respectable mannequins who teach from seven to five and spend the rest of their lives carefully avoiding anything that might upset somebody scrolling through Facebook.

That is neither professionalism nor humanity.

The better principle is discernment: look at the circumstances, the people who may be affected, the teacher’s purpose, the likely consequences, and the greater good before clicking “Post.” It asks more of educators than simply memorizing a list of prohibitions. It also asks administrators to distinguish between genuine misconduct and expression that is merely inconvenient. Rules need context. Judgment needs fairness. Rights come with responsibilities, but responsibilities should not become convenient language for making rights disappear.

There is good reason for DepEd, the PRC, the Civil Service Commission, schools, and communities to expect much from teachers. Their influence is enormous. Children trust them. Families entrust children to them. Their words carry weight. Precisely because teachers matter, however, their voices also matter.

A teacher can be careful without becoming timid. Professional without becoming voiceless. Critical without becoming cruel. Funny without making a learner the joke. Political without turning the classroom partisan. Human without embarrassing the profession.

Perhaps that is the line worth defending.

Give teachers standards high enough to protect their students and profession. But leave them enough freedom to remain what they were before they became teachers, and what they remain after the last bell rings: citizens with minds, convictions, questions, and voices of their own.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.