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North Cotabato execs want CHED action on troubled state school

John Unson - Philstar.com

December 16, 2016 | 11:40am

North Cotabato execs want CHED action on troubled state school

Classes at the state agricultural school have been suspended for two weeks because of protests. Bing Maps

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines — The acting governor of North Cotabato reiterated Thursday her appeal for the Commission on Higher Education to defuse tension at a troubled agricultural school in the province.

Dozens of teachers in the Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology (CFCST) on Tuesday joined students who have been picketing in their campus in Arakan town since early December to force their school president Samsom Molao to step down.

North Cotabato’s acting governor, Shirlyn Macasarte, said on Thursday that the CHED must act now on the continuing protests in the CFCST campus.

Macasarte said only the CHED can settle the problem in the CFCST campus.

In a dialogue with journalists in Cotabato City Wednesday, CFST teachers and student leaders took turns calling on the central office of CHED and the Commission on Audit to investigate alleged anomalies in the school’s handling of education funds.

Teachers also asked the police to search for firearms in the offices and living quarters of school officials.

Moro officials of various student clubs also called on presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza to help convince CHED to act on the problems now hounding CFCST.

There are hundreds of Moro CFCST students from impoverished areas that are covered by the ongoing peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Molao: I will not step down

Classes in the state-run agricultural college have been suspended since protests began two weeks ago.

Macasarte told reporters she has requested the provincial police to secure the campus to prevent violence.

Students and faculty members have been prodding Molao to vacate his post since 2014.

Protesters want Molao, accused of mishandling school funds and grants for special programs meant to improve the welfare of students and for his alleged partisan activities during elections, out.

Molao told reporters there is no criminal or any graft case filed against him and no reason for him to step down. He said only the CHED can take him out and install a school caretaker to replace him.

Local officials, through a resolution by the Arakan municipal disaster risk reduction management council, have also asked CHED to step in.

The resolution was drafted during a meeting early this week of local officials and community elders led by Arakan Mayor Rene Rubino.

The council called on CHED to immediately assume control of the CFCST and look into allegations of anomalies involving school officials.

Ambushes on faculty

The bullet-riddled car of state-run college teacher Harris Sinolinding. JOHN UNSON

The tension in the CFCST campus started more than two years ago, triggered by a grenade blast there and a mysterious conflagration that hit a dormitory of student-activists hostile to Molao.

Harris Sinolinding, a faculty member pushing for Molao’s ouster, was nearly killed in an ambush while on his way to the school in August.

The attempt on Sinolinding’s life came two years after gunmen killed CFCST vice president Delfin Moreno three days after he led a rally denouncing the alleged mismanagement of the school.

CFCST administrator Cedric Mantawil was ambushed last year. He had been critical of the alleged mishandling of the school coffer by certain officials.

Mantawil, who was seriously wounded in the attack, has since been receiving death threats.