DILG to meet with DepEd over PNP’s ‘profiling’ of ACT teachers

DILG Assistant Secretary Jonathan Malaya. (Photo from his FB account)

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) “would be glad to meet our partners” in the Department of Education (DepEd) over the supposed “profiling” of teachers associated with the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) by police.

“We would be glad to meet with our partners in DepEd at the soonest possible opportunity,” Jonathan Malaya, Assistant Secretary and Spokesperson of the DILG, said in a statement on Monday.

Malaya told INQUIRER.net that he has already coordinated with DepEd and officials of the two government agencies are now arranging a schedule to meet.

“Nonetheless, as previously stated by (Philippine National Police chief) Director General Oscar Albayalde, we wish to underscore that there is no crackdown on ACT members in any school in the country. What the PNP is undertaking is simply intelligence or information gathering, which is one of its major functions,” he said.

He defended PNP’s responsibility to monitor organizations critical of the government, “especially those linked to militant organizations whose objective is to overthrow the duly-elected government.”

Malaya said DILG hopes to relay to DepEd that what the PNP is doing is “not only legal but also necessary.”

Meanwhile, Albayalde said he has not signed any memorandum ordering the profiling of ACT members.

He said he has yet to check which police official has issued such directive. He also clarified that not all memoranda of PNP directorates require his signature. /kga

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