North Cotabato exec seek CHED action on school row

NORTH COTABATO ---The acting governor of North Cotabato reiterated Thursday her appeal for the Commission on Higher Education to act on the leadership crisis in a troubled state college in Arakan town.Dozens of teachers in the Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology (CFCST) on Tuesday joined students picketing in their campus in Arakan since early December to force their school president, Samsom Molao, to step down.North Cotabato’s acting governor, Shirlyn Macasarte, said on Thursday the CHED must act now on the continuing protest actions in the CFCST campus.Classes in the state-run agricultural college had been suspended since students and teachers started their picket more than two weeks ago.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 on 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 recalcitrant school officials.Moro officials of various student clubs also called on Presidential Adviser Jesus Dureza to help convince CHED to act on the problems now hounding the CFCST.There are hundreds of Moro CFCST students from impoverished areas covered by the on-going peace overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.Macasarte told reporters she has requested the provincial police to secure the CFCST campus to prevent any outbreak of hostilities there.Students and faculty members have been prodding Molao to vacate his post since 2014.Teachers and students again staged a protest rally on Tuesday morning at the CFCST campus, where speakers took turns urging CHED to immediately relieve Molao from his post and install a caretaker acceptable to all.Protesters are demanding the ouster of Molao, accused of mishandling of school funds and grants for special programs meant to improve the welfare of students and for his alleged partisan activities during elections.Molao told reporters he will never vacate his post since there is no criminal or any graft case filed against him. He said only the CHED can take him out and install a school caretaker to replace him.Local officials had earlier urged CHED to intervene through a resolution from the Arakan municipal disaster risk reduction management council.The resolution was drafted during a meeting early this week of local officials and community elders led by Arakan Mayor Rene Rubino, the council’s administrative figurehead.The resolution called on CHED to immediately assume control of the CFCST and look into allegations of anomalies involving incumbent school officials.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 three months ago.Sinolinding survived the ambush unscathed, but the incident affected his teaching duties and his movements in Arakan.The attempt on Sinolinding’s life came two years after gunmen killed CFCST’s vice president, Delfin Moreno, three days after he led a rally denouncing the mismanagement of the school.The incident was followed by the ambush last year of CFCST’s administrator, Cedric Mantawil, who was also 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 via text messages from anonymous senders.