ASSERT expresses its deepest condolences to the family, colleagues, and students of Teacher Agnes Buenaflor of Pedro E. Diaz High School, Muntinlupa City, who collapsed and later died on January 7, 2026 while conducting her class during a scheduled Classroom Observation (CO). This tragic incident must serve as a serious wake-up call for the Department of Education. While the classroom observation is only one of the components of teacher evaluation, we assert that its current design and implementation have become excessive, time-consuming, and unnecessary, failing to reflect the depth and complexity of teachers’ work. Teachers have demonstrated their competence through years — even decades — of service. The manner in which CO is imposed today has become largely bureaucratic, disconnected from classroom realities, and a waste of valuable instructional time and energy. Teaching in DepEd has come to resemble sending soldiers into battle with weapons that are inadequate, illsuited, and far from sufficient for the realities they face. Teachers face rigid requirements, overwhelming paper works, unrealistic performance demands, and constant surveillance, without the institutional support necessary to survive the profession. These pressures fall most heavily on women teachers, who carry a double burden of paid work in school and unpaid labor at home. Many teachers now lament “halos hilahin na lang namin ang mga araw,” struggling simply to reach retirement. Countless educators are forced to remain in service until age 65 not because they still find joy in teaching, but to survive financially. For many, daily teaching has become suffering rather than fulfillment. ASSERT calls on the Department of Education to: 1. Immediately review and overhaul the CO and teacher evaluation framework; 2. Remove non-essential, redundant, and oppressive requirements; 3. Institutionalize comprehensive mental-health programs for teachers; 4. End harassment, intimidation, and power-tripping in the bureaucracy; 5. Build a genuinely healthy, humane, and joyful learning environment. The life and death of Teacher Buenaflor must not fade into silence. Her passing must not become just another statistic. We now place the challenge squarely before the Department of Education: Will you continue to manage teachers through pressure and paper works — or will you finally choose to govern with care, responsibility, and genuine respect for those who carry the nation’s classrooms on their backs?
Statement on the death of a teacher during classroom observation and the urgent need to reform DEPED’S working conditions
