When teachers become the target

By Herman M. Lagon

There are statements that are technically defensible and still badly need to be said again, only better. Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro gave us one this week. Asked in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at Ateneo de Zamboanga University, she spoke about young people needing guidance from parents and schools, then added that “some teachers” themselves violate standards of morality and sometimes teach students to be disrespectful. The phrase “some teachers” matters. She did not accuse every teacher. But context matters just as much. Two young people had died. A country was asking how guns reached students and how another school community came face-to-face with deadly violence. Teachers suddenly found themselves inside the Palace answer.

Predictably, the chalk dust flew. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers said the remarks demoralized educators already carrying heavy workloads for modest pay. ACT chair Ruby Bernardo asked government to put more resources into preventing school violence, including mental-health and security personnel, and raised the more immediate question of how students obtained firearms in the first place. The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition was more measured: it understood Castro’s concern about educators’ formative role but objected to generalizing from an isolated case. Its chair, Benjo Basas, made another important point: Castro speaks for the President, not merely for herself.

That last point deserves attention. Castro is not an ordinary Marites holding court over coffee. She has every right to speak plainly and has rightly spoken against threats and abusive language online. But as Palace press officer, her words travel farther than most. Public discourse could certainly use less menace. But the same care she asks of others should apply to her own words, especially in the wake of tragedy. A government spokesperson has to ask not only, “Is there some truth in what I am saying?” but also, “Is this the right connection to make here, and do I have enough basis to make it?”

Because there is a piece of truth in what Castro said, uncomfortable as it may be. Teachers influence children. We are not merely human photocopiers dispensing lessons on quadratic equations, grammar, or the parts of a cell. Research bears this out: teacher-student relationships matter to children’s behavior and self-concept (García-Rodríguez et al., 2023) and to adolescent motivation (Burns & Van Bergen, 2025). More recent work found that students’ perceptions of emotional and instrumental teacher support can operate through self-esteem to reduce demotivation (Li et al., 2026). So, yes, what teachers say and do matters. Sometimes for decades.

I was reminded of that when a former student reacted to the controversy and raised concerns about teachers who can lower a child’s morale or self-esteem. I did not defend every teacher automatically. Fair point, I told the student. Schools must keep wrestling with this. I have been the physics teacher and journalism adviser who pushed high school students hard, and I also remember the teachers who made us sit a little straighter when they walked into the room. Years later, strangely enough, some became the teachers we thanked most. They demanded another draft. They returned the sloppy solution. They did not accept “Sir, nakalimutan ko” for the fourth time. Tough love can be formation too. The line I keep returning to is dignity: be firm, but never make the child feel small. Be kind, not merely nice. We want students to become stronger because of us, not smaller.

This is where the social-media argument that “parents form character, teachers only reinforce it” becomes a little too neat. Parents come first, but they are not alone in forming a child. There are teachers, barkadas, relatives, social media, and the larger community—all leaving their mark. It takes a village, except today’s village has Wi-Fi. The better that village works together, the better chance the child has.

And that is precisely where Castro’s original remarks went off course. Teachers unquestionably influence student formation. But invoking the misconduct of unrelated teachers while discussing the Zamboanga shooting suggested a connection for which no established evidence had been presented. When you speak from a Malacañang podium, intention matters, but so do context, timing, and the implications people can reasonably draw from your words.

Lost somewhat in the argument is AdZU itself—a grieving school community that deserves the space to care for its people, establish the facts, and learn from them without being reduced to anybody’s convenient explanation. There are bigger questions to ask about guns, student support, and school safety. Rep. Antonio Tinio also raised funding, mental-health services, and gun control. A teacher’s misconduct elsewhere deserves attention, but it should not be made to explain this tragedy.

To her credit, Castro has now clarified what she meant. At the most recent Palace briefing, she said she was not blaming teachers for the violence. “Hindi po kayo sinisisi. Ito ay pagpapaalala,” she said. Her point, she explained, was to remind teachers of their important role in forming young people and serving, in many ways, as second parents. She also said she understood where offended teachers were coming from and spoke of her respect for the profession, noting that her own mother had been a public school teacher until her death.

That clarification matters, and fairness requires that we acknowledge it. If Castro’s point is simply that teachers share in forming young people, many of us would agree. She also explained that the teacher misconduct she cited involved specific reported or investigated cases, including one now facing an administrative proceeding. Those cases deserve to be dealt with on their own merits.

But the clarification does not make the original context disappear. The question remains why unrelated cases of teacher misconduct needed to enter a discussion about a tragedy whose causes were still being established. Saying that people misinterpreted your words is one thing. Asking why reasonable people understood them that way is another. For someone speaking from Malacañang, that distinction matters. The job requires not only accuracy, but discernment: Is this relevant? Is this the right moment? Could these words unfairly implicate people who have nothing to do with what happened?

There is another uncomfortable lesson, this time for Castro’s critics. Some reactions have become vicious. She has been called stupid, mentally ill, crazy, and worse. Others have joked about violence against her. That is indefensible. There is something painfully absurd about defending teachers from an accusation of teaching disrespect by demonstrating disrespect in the comments section. Critique the statement, not the person’s humanity. Castro is entitled to exactly the dignity teachers are demanding for themselves. Calling for accountability is democratic. Wishing harm on someone is not an argument.

I would not rush to demand Castro’s resignation over this episode. Public officials can misjudge context and learn from it. Nor should her legitimate work or valid arguments elsewhere disappear because she handled this issue poorly. Her clarification is a welcome step, and it deserves to be taken in good faith. But public communication is not only about what the speaker intended. It is also about anticipating how words may reasonably land, especially when they come from the Palace and when a community is grieving.

An apology would still be gracious, particularly to teachers who felt unfairly drawn into the tragedy. But I would no longer make that the heart of the issue. More important is the lesson this leaves behind. Greater influence demands greater care—from teachers standing before classrooms and from public officials standing behind microphones. Both can say something true and still need to ask whether it was said at the right time, in the right way, and with enough regard for those who would carry its weight.

We teachers can also take this moment to look inward. The child who repeatedly arrives without homework may need discipline. The teenager talking back may need consequences. The student who submits a lazy first draft may need to hear, “You can do much better than this.” None of those responses requires humiliation. A cutting remark delivered before forty classmates can stay with a child much longer than the teacher remembers saying it. So can the opposite: the quiet “Kaya mo iyan” after class. Research on teacher caring has found associations with students’ self-esteem, well-being, and school engagement (Lavy & Naama-Ghanayim, 2020). Teachers carry influence precisely because students notice more than the lessons on our PowerPoints.

Perhaps that is the useful thing we can rescue from an ugly exchange. Parents cannot outsource formation to schools. Schools cannot send every difficult child back to the parents. Government cannot point to values education while neglecting safety, mental-health support, adequate staffing, and serious questions about firearm access. Teachers cannot claim influence when students succeed and suddenly claim none when our own conduct deserves examination. And public officials cannot rely on good intentions alone when their words create implications they did not intend.

Castro has clarified, and that clarification deserves to be heard. But the episode should also remind her—and anyone entrusted with a public microphone—that words spoken from Malacañang require unusual care. Teachers should welcome fair criticism without carrying unfair blame. Public officials should speak plainly, but with discernment and circumspection. In classrooms and in government, influence carries responsibility. A child is formed by many hands; keeping those hands caring, responsible, and accountable may be harder than pointing a finger, but it is far more likely to save a life.

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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.