Facebook dilemma for schools

The administration of Saint Theresa’s College last Friday chose to defy a court order directing the school to allow two graduating high school seniors to attend their commencement exercise.

The case stemmed from disciplinary action against the students who allegedly uploaded in their Facebook accounts photos of themselves posing in bikinis and engaging in “immoral’ acts.

The trial court issued a Temporary Restraining Order against the school’s decision barring the students from  participating in the graduation rites. The judge noted there was no strict observance of due process of law. The school’s decision to set a penalty  based on their Student Handbook was not questioned or declared invalid by the court. He said there was no strict observance of due process of law that was accorded to the students.

I have no comment on the issue because to be fair, I am also part of the administration of the University of San Carlos and respect all the rights of the parties. But but this is what I can  say : Social networking site are a major concern of our teachers.

In the past, we were confronted with pictures of two lady students who uploaded a picture showing both of them  kissing each other. Another photo clearly showed some of our students drinking liquor with the bottles displayed in the picture. One of our faculty members saw the photos. We immediately called the students to a meeting and told them to be careful and not to repeat what they did.

Fortunately the students listened and removed the photos in their online accounts.

We remind them that they are students of the university and that as long as they remain so,  whatever they do, they bring with them the name of the university.

What if they are doing all of these questionable acts outside the campus? Would it still matter? Yes, because people who know them would always identify them with their school.

This is the kind of  dilemma  we face in  dealing with social networking sites. In another case a teacher complained that students who flunk a subject express their disgust in their Facebook  account to the extent of cursing the teacher. We believe that it is their right to express themselves but that it is not the proper and correct protocol to announce to the whole world your accusation without giving the teacher  the opportunity to give his side of the story.

What the student can do is to write the office about his complaint so we would  have the chance to address it. I forewarned students to be careful and prudent about what they upload in Facebook especially pictures and their choice of language. Some students who have graduated and applied for a job were denied employment because of what they wrote or posted in their Facebook accounts.

People are free to use Facebook but it must be tempered with responsibility and accountability.

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I believe Commission on Election Chairman Sixto Brilliantes is correct in proposing that the electoral registration lists of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao  be invalidated and that a new registration should be done using  biometrics in order to weed out flying voters, a rampant trend in the ARMM that has  been used in election cheating.

This should be done all over the country because it practically negates the use of poll automation. I think this should be the Comelec’s priority. The government should stop entertaining the accusation that there was cheating in the last 2010 election because no one has so far proven this especially with the use of the PCOs machine. Evidence has shown that the use of the automated machine resulted in the quick release of election results and did not allow the manipulation of the results after the casting of votes and transmission of the ballot boxes.

There are those who still cannot accept the loss of their favored candidate in the 2010 election  and continue to peddle talk that their candidate was cheated through the PCOS but can’t convincingly prove it.