Thousands of teachers complained about the strenuous 2010 Census of Population and Housing (CHP) which they attribute to lack of advertisement or campaign to inform the public by the Department of Education (DepEd) or the National Statistics Office (NSO).

The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) said that the teachers were again put in complicated situation with the ongoing CHP because they are having hard time gathering information from households due to lack of cooperation from the people.

The CHP is a decennial project of the NSO where it tapped public school teachers to be census enumerators among other tasks. This year, about 75,000 public school teachers will serve in the CHP.

The DepEd, through Secretary Mona Valisno, has already issued a statement appealing to the people to “cooperate in giving our teachers accurate data on their households.” But no advertisement or campaign to inform the public was launched either by the DepEd or the NSO.

TDC spokesperson Emmalyn Policarpio said that the teachers were particularly disappointed with the way the people treat them. 
“Most of the residents are reluctant and even suspicious of the teachers and do not welcome them in their houses. In some subdivisions, it took them several days to secure permission to enter the gates.”

Policarpio said that aside from physical exhaustion, teachers are also exposed to the danger of possible harassment especially for female teachers who are working in the field alone. “Some of the teacher-enumerators work in tandem for mutual protection. However, it would delay the accomplishment of their tasks,” she said.

Teachers at the Gen. T. De Leon Elementary School in Valenzuela City said that among the major problems they face during the census include verbal harassment and suspicions from the residents, among others.

Teacher Rachel Ugaddan recalled entering a warehouse for the census. “I was verbally harassed when I said that code for Roman Catholic is 69, the resident repeated ‘69’ with malicious innuendo,” she said.

Another teacher, Amy Cabaron, said that she needed five days before she was finally allowed to enter the premises of a subdivision.