The Department of Education is investigating why student-athletes were packed like sardines in a truck in Rizal Palawan.
The children were on their way to Bataraza to attend the provincial meet.
Netizens who saw the pictures expressed their concerns about the student-athletes’ safety. Some asked where did the school’s budget for transportation go.
Under DepEd Order No. 40, series of 2012 or the Child Protection Policy, such negligence could be considered as child abuse which includes
- Psychological or physical abuse, neglect, cruelty, sexual abuse, and emotional maltreatment
- Any act by deed or words which debases, degrades or demeans the intrinsic worth and dignity of a child as a human being
- Unreasonable deprivation of the child’s basic needs for survival, such as food and shelter or
- Failure to immediately give medical treatment to an injured child resulting in serious impairment of his or her growth and development or in the child’s incapacity or death.
It can also be considered as physical violence against children for “assigning children to perform tasks which are hazardous to their physical well-being.”
