By ARTHA KIRA PAREDES
COTABATO City — The Department of Education in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is organizing teams of teachers to deal with threats of violence on Election Day, in what is believed to be the first measure of its kind to protect the election frontliners.
The agency launched today the DepEd-ARMM Election Response Network (DERN) and Election Response Teams (ERTs) based on Regional Memorandum Order 26, dated April 12, 2013.
In the memo, the DepEd acknowledges that school officials and their next of kin
are vulnerable to “coercion, intimidation, threats, bribery, violence against persons and even deaths.”
DepEd Assistant Secretary Noor Saada said they believe this is the first of its kind in the country. The proposed intervention for teachers is something they have learned from previous elections where there have been issues on teachers’ welfare, he said.