MUSLIM school children at a madrasa. [contributed photo]

Before 2005 ended, Ampatuan also had to create a task force to look into reports of phantom schools and ghost teachers through ARMM Department Order Number 1. Last November, Ampatuan himself reported in his second State of the Region Address: “We have identified a number of schools (that) are not existing but functional only according to records.”

Guiani-Sayadi says the inventory has yielded over 10 phantom schools, mostly in Lanao del Sur. Interestingly, it also unearthed “mobile schools” and “borrowed students,” practices resorted to by ingenious division officials to enliven ghost schools. The schemes call for students from one barangay to go to another to make it appear to inspection teams that classes exist in regionally funded schools.

The issue has been the subject of congressional hearings and a special report by the Commission on Audit. To date, however, no ARMM official has been prosecuted, much less put behind bars, even for the glaring crime of siphoning off the teachers’ remittances to the GSIS.

Instead, it is the current crop of officials who must sift through the records and propose corrective measures, which may take years to pay and may entail another bailout by the national government.

'MISSING' TEACHERS
So far, it is the teachers who are being made to bear the burden of making up for their missing contributions, so that they can be considered “good enough” to take out a loan from the GSIS and other financing institutions.

Yet if there are missing remittances, there are also “missing” teachers. Guiani-Sayadi says field checks have yielded no breathing individual for some teaching items that had been reported as filled and for which salaries had been collected regularly. There have also been cases of retired or dead teachers who continued to be paid — until an audit put a stop to it.

Guiani-Sayadi also tells of an elderly woman who came to collect her teacher-daughter’s salary. There was something about the woman that pricked Guiani-Sayadi’s curiosity, though, and a thorough check of the daughter’s records was conducted. After a doublecheck out on field, it was confirmed that the daughter was no longer teaching — and had been working overseas for years.

As Guiani-Sayadi describes it, pay collection time at ARMM can be very interesting. She recalls one woman who showed up in a burqa, which reveals only the eyes of the wearer. She says she told the person who was in charge of the payroll, “Let her talk, listen to her voice.” Her advice was heeded, and the woman was discovered to have already collected her pay.

Yet as if all these were not enough, there have also been approved teaching items that were made to appear to have been granted to two, and even up to as many as nine, teachers. Guiani-Sayadi theorizes that some unscrupulous individuals at DepEd had taken advantage of the mess in the personnel files, and had forged documents to collect the salaries of the “excess” teachers. That is assuming, of course, that at least one teacher actually occupied the position.

ARMM education department insiders say this setup should not be confused with the “subcontracted” teachers, or those who had been hired by the real post occupants. As the insiders tell it, those who have the cheek to do this are usually the teachers who got their posts by bribing DepEd officials. These teachers, they say, see no reason to show up in school, except when collecting their pay. But they do hire someone else to teach in their stead, whom they pay a fraction of their salary while they pocket the difference.

'ORGANIZED CRIME'
An ARMM official who declines to be named says the reasoning of these teachers goes like this: “Binayaran ko na noon ang puwesto ko, bakit pa ako papasok (I have paid for my position, why do I have to work)?”

Another former teacher in Maguindanao says, “Those who bought their positions cannot be forced to teach.”

Observers and educators in the region say the practice — which is not exactly uncommon — has gone unchecked because DepEd officials rarely conduct surprise visits. Oftentimes, visits are announced beforehand because, says one educator, “of security concerns.” Unfortunately, this also allows the misbehaving teachers to prepare and cover their tracks.

Guiani-Sayadi has taken to calling the various scams at DepEd ARMM as “an organized crime.” She asks, “How can this happen without the connivance of officials in the past? Who signed the certifications?”

The so-called “golden hands” that are masters in forging documents and signatures, though, are at work even outside of the education department. At least one former midlevel education supervisor in the ARMM province of Maguindanao says she has encountered several teachers whose school records and eligibility papers were dubious.

It’s no wonder that Guiani-Sayadi says her job has made her toughen up. A fast-talking, no-nonsense woman, she points to her heart and says, “You have to be strong here. If they start crying, will you tolerate it, knowing it’s wrong?”

At the very least, some local governments have started admitting their own education systems need to be fixed.