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A mixture of fear, uncertainty and anger filled Shiela Aballe, second year nursing student at the Mandaue City College (MCC), as she and other students clashed with police and City Hall security who blocked the entrance of the college’s former main campus.
Emotions flared when students and teachers were prevented from entering the premises as city officials turned over the school building to officials of another school. Some cried while others threw stones at the security officers and at the vehicles of city officials.
Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes ordered the building blocked off yesterday, citing that MCC operations had been transferred to the Mandaue City Sports Complex.
He said the campus would be used by the Mandaue City National Science High School (MCNSHS).
Cortes said the security personnel assigned to the building did not use “excessive force” as alleged by school officials, whom he accused of “playing politics.”
But Aballe claimed that she, her fellow students and their teachers were “traumatized” by the number of armed policemen and security officers who blocked off the entrance to the school with tables and other furniture as Cortes turned over the building to MCNSHS officials.
The transfer was enforced by 30 policemen from the Mandaue City Police Office, 10 barangay tanods and 10 members of City Hall’s Janitorial and Security Services Unit (JASSU).
City officials forcibly opened the door to what was once the office of former MCC president Paulus Cañete about 9 a.m. yesterday.
Upon seeing this, some students tried to force their way through the barricade that city personnel set up at the school building’s entrance. But JASSU members used a table to push back the students.
Nursing Dean Elni Mari Mendoza, who stayed with the students, called the takeover “harassment.”
“Why lock down the school without any cause? They don’t even have a court order,” he said.
Aballe, who was taking summer classes, said she was worried that she and her 63 classmates would not be able to get their degree.
At a cost of P100 per unit, MCC offers the cheapest nursing course in the province. But it was ordered abolished due to the college’s inability to meet the standards. .
“I don’t know if we can still have classes. We no longer have classrooms,” said Aballe, whose white uniform got stained due to yesterday’s commotion.
Some teachers, however, held classes in makeshift classrooms in an adjacent lot. Some school administrators and staff stayed nearby.
Cortes said he was willing to help these students.
“We welcome these students and help them at the Mandaue City College at the sports complex,” said Cortes said.
But the nursing course that Aballe and other students are hoping to graduate from is no longer available from the MCC at the sports complex, headed by Dr. Susana Cabahug.
As the mayor, city officials and education officials left the premises, students angrily slammed portions of the mayor’s car.
According to Dr. Elmer Ripalda, dean of MCC’s Information Technology and Engineering department, they heard that Rep. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz (Cebu, 6th district) would help look for a new school building for the MCC, possibly on a lot in barangay Jagobiao.
Cortes, however, said MCC would not transferred in Jagobiao.
“If Soon-Ruiz will build a school in Jagobiao, it will be a new school and not MCC,” he said.
Soon-Ruiz criticized the mayor for using a “Gestapo” tactic, referring to the secret state police of Nazi Germany.
“If the MCC has to be moved out of their current place for a valid reason, we should also extend help for it to find a suitable relocation because the people who are most affected by this is the students and their parents,” she said.
But Cortes said that the turnover was the “right thing” to do because the building was built for the MCNSHS in the first place under the Usufruct Contract signed in 1998 by then mayor Thadeo Ouano.
He said that for the past years, MCNSHS was a “tenant” of the Opao High School. MCNSHS administrators have been complaining of lack of classrooms.
It was for this reason, he said, that the MCC was transferred to the sports complex. With UP Masscom Intern Kristine Rose C. Garcia
