A Philippine Catholic school is withholding the diplomas of six high-school boys who uploaded Facebook photographs that appear to show them kissing one another, an education official said yesterday.
A day earlier, a Philippine court rejected another Catholic school’s decision to bar five girls from graduation ceremonies because they had posed in bikinis for photographs posted on Facebook. The cases test the limits of privacy in a conservative Catholic nation that is also among the world’s most prolific users of social networking sites.
Philippine Department of Education officer Samuel Mergenio said the six boys told him they had taken prank photographs to make it appear that their lips touched. One of the boys uploaded the pictures on Facebook and mistakenly made them available to others, Mergenio said.
The pictures were not taken at the boys’ school, Infant Jesus Academy in the Manila suburb of Marikina, but the students were wearing school uniforms, he said.
Mergenio said the school chancellor informed the department late on Thursday that the boys would be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony, but “the release of their diplomas will be delayed.”
He said the school did not say when the diplomas would be handed over and that he was awaiting a formal written report from the school.
The school chancellor was not available for comment yesterday.
The mother of the boy who uploaded the photographs said she works as a nurse in Saudi Arabia and went home only to attend the graduation of her son, one of twins.
She said she refused to attend the graduation ceremony because her son would be subjected to ridicule as he would not be called to the stage to receive his diploma.
“It would be like an insult,” she said.
On Thursday, a judge in central Cebu City issued a restraining order against St Theresa’s College High School, ordering it to allow the five students who appeared in the bikini photographs to take part in graduation ceremonies scheduled for yesterday.
The school, which declined to comment asked the court to reconsider. The girls’ lawyer, Cornelio Mercado, said yesterday that the school was still insisting on banning the students while its motion for reconsideration is pending.
Mercado said one Facebook photograph at issue showed a girl holding a cigarette and a liquor bottle, while others showed all five wearing bikinis at a beach party held for the 16th birthday of one the girls, in December last year.
The mother of the girl who hosted the party said a security guard barred the group yesterday from entering the school campus.
“They were really hurt,” she said.
School officials took action against the girls for what they called “engaging in immoral, indecent, obscene or lewd acts,” according to court records.
They said the students would graduate, but could not participate in activities or ceremonies.
Earlier this month, the five girls were summoned by the principal and other school officials, “dressed down” and called “sluts,” Mercado said.
Judge Wilfredo Navarro of the Regional Trial Court, castigated school officials for calling the girls “inappropriate names.” He said not allowing them to participate in graduation activities “would indeed be most un-Christian if not entirely inhuman.”
The mother of one girl had petitioned the court on behalf of her daughter. Mercado said the ruling applied to all five.
The families yesterday filed charges of “grave oral defamation’’ and illegal use of photographs showing minors against the school, Mercado said, alleging that school officials had illegally obtained the pictures because they were not Facebook “friends” of the girls and were not allowed access.
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