That day a principal in Panay ordered pupils to undress

Image of Panay Church from Wikimedia Commons

Some time in October 1932, a principal of the Panay elementary in the province of Capiz drew the ire of parents after a degrading incident involving their children.  On the morning of October 28, the principal instructed the teachers to dismiss their classes and to inform the pupils to pass before the principal for "inspection." About 100 boys and a number of girls, most of them in the intermediate grades, went and filed before him.

Upon scrutinizing the clothes of the pupils, he adjudged that their clothes and dresses were unworthy of being worn school, so he immediately told them to disrobe! According to the Tribune, “since he could find nothing sanitary in the garments, he proposed to look under the garments, and did so.”

The pupils were surprised and puzzled at the same time. I think the teachers were also shocked, but in those days, when the authority of an exalted position speaks, everyone meekly obeys. They did not have a choice but to follow orders lest they endure the wrath of the principal. Their face were red in shame, they slowly took off their clothes and the embarrassed pupils paraded “past the principal almost entirely in the altogether, with a detachment of girls, stricken with shame and weeping, following them.”

Out of mortification, the girls who lived outside the pueblo waited until evening settled because they did not want them to be seen by the crowd. They went home crying and in low spirits.

News of the incident spread like wildfire in the town. The next day, the parents rushed to the school, angry at the principal’s actions. They demanded an explanation as to why their children were sent home without their clothing. The parents initially wanted to write a resolution to the division superintendent of schools and to the director of education to complain against the principal's "uncivilized and disgraceful method of enforcing health rules."

However, the principal managed to convince the parents that what he did was for the good of every one that the children’s clothes were dirty, thus, unfit for school wear. The mothers were subsequently “convinced that the move was purely in the interest of sanitation and nothing else.” The plan to report the incident to higher authorities was cancelled. 

Source:

The Tribune via Trove