Parents of 4 Cebu students sue school

The parents of four of five high school students who were not allowed to attend their graduation rites for posting their pictures wearing bikinis on their Facebook accounts filed a complaint for grave oral defamation on Friday against three officials of a Catholic school here.

Named respondents in the complaint filed at the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office were Sr. Celeste Ma. Purisima Pe, high school principal of St. Theresa’s College (STC); Musolini Yap, assistant principal; and Kristene Rose Ligok, discipline in-charge.

The complainants alleged that the school administrators called the students “sluts” and having engaged in “immoral , indecent, obscene or lewd act.”

Pe, however, said in a press conference on March 29 that she never called the students names that are inhumane and rude. “They’re putting those words in my mouth. I never said those things,” she said.

The complainants also claimed that the school violated Republic Act No. 9995 when the school, hacked and intruded the students’ private accounts in Facebook, a social network, and published them.

They demanded compensation from the school for the humiliation their children suffered and endured.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal supported STC’s decision to bar the students from attending their graduation rites for violating rules in the student handbook, including one against posting lewd photos on the Internet.