TikTok users called the attention of the education department following a trending video that showed a hypothetical scenario of a teacher catching the attention of a “cute student.”
The video has been taken down by the content creator but it has since earned several reactions, with some coming from students themselves. He also set his account to private.
The TikTok clip featured a male teacher who depicted how he would react should a “cute student” pass by him.
“‘Pag dumaan ‘yung cute na student mo. Tamang pa-cute lang,” the text on the video reads, accompanied by a laughing-with-tears emoji.
The teacher also swept his hand over his hair, bit his lips and then danced in response.
TikTok users expressed their concerns over the video and called the attention of the Department of Education. Some claimed that the content creator is a teacher of junior high school students in Pampanga.
A content creator tagged the official account of DepEd on the mobile video-sharing platform and repeatedly mentioned the agency in her duet video featuring the teacher’s viral clip.
Another TikTok user shared a picture of a character from the 1997 movie “Lolita” in response to the video.
The film character is a middle-aged professor who becomes sexually attracted to an adolescent girl.
A different TikTok user, who described herself as a “would-be teacher,” shared that she doesn’t “get” the need to make herself look cute when such a student passes by.
The TikTok video has also reached the Philippine subreddit of a discussion website on Thursday.
It was captioned: “DepEd, pls. do something about this.”
The post has been earned 97% and has earned more than 300 comments on Reddit so far.
“Pedo? Freudian slip,” a Redditor commented.
“Pedo” is short for a pedophile, while a Freudian slip refers to a slip of the tongue moment related to someone’s unconscious subdued wish or an internal train of thought.
“Uhhh what, we normalizing grooming now?” another Reddit user commented on the teacher’s TikTok video.
Just last September, a group of concerned alumni condemned incidents of alleged sexual harassment by a teaching staff against several students in a science school.
Students and alumni of another high school also shared multiple claims of sexual harassment through the hashtag “#FEUHSDoBetter” last April.
In 2020, the Philippine branch of the non-profit organization Save the Children urged schools and universities to address the then-mounting online reports of alleged harassment done by faculty members and teachers.
At that time, a litany of allegations involving professors of different institutions was brought to light by students from Ateneo de Manila University, Miriam College High School and St. Theresa’s College, among others.
The institutions have acknowledged the reports and vowed transparency and action, but also stressed the need for due process.
