[] There may have been objections to a complete ban as parents want ready access to their children for any emergency at home or in school.
[] As of this writing, school officials have asked Mayor Gica for the written executive order. All along, he had been communicating through social media and in meetings with DepEd and agencies involved in the LGU project.
DUMANJUG, Cebu Mayor Efren Guntrano "Gungun" Gica had announced a "complete, total ban" on cellphones and "no inspection, no entry" in all schools in his southwest Cebu town starting Monday, June 29, 2026.
Given the noise and tremor the move had produced, reaching even other news corners of the country, the official pause is significant, drawing a closer look at how local intervention in national policy works.
'BRIEF ADJUSMENT.' On the same day that the ban was scheduled to begin full blast, Mayor Gica walked back, pivoted.
The mayor said it's a small change of plan, "a brief adjustment."
Still, given the noise and tremor the issue has produced, reaching news corners of the country outside Cebu, the pause is not insignificant.
Following a meeting with school and police officials and heads of agencies managing public safety, disaster response, social welfare and traffic, Mayor Gica said they agreed to give students and parents time to "adjust" to the enforcement of the Department of Education policy.
OPPOSITION AND DECS. Being politically savvy, Mayor Gungun is apparently listening to his public.
Many parents must have expressed objection to the mayor's policy of confiscation and detention. They want instant phone access to their children outside their home, and vice versa. For emergency, to check on them, provide/seek help or for any other reason.
As to the student's bond with the digital device, heard of the saying "the child and the phone cannot be easily parted"?
Then there's DepEd, which laid down and enforces the policy. The department running the country's schools wants to read and study the written text of the mayor's executive order, when or if there is one, obviously to see if the mayor's version of the ban is acceptable to DepEd.
ORDERS FROM DECS, DEP-ED: NOT 1 OR 2 BUT 5. There had been at least five orders from then Decs (Department of Education, Culture and Sports) and DepEd (Department of Education).
They are, namely, (1) Decs Order #70, s. 1999; (2) Decs Order #16, s. 2000; (3) department order #83, s. 2003 repeating and reaffirming the first two orders; (4) Regional Memorandum #259, s. 2024; and (5) DepEd Order #06, series 2026.
A total of at least five department orders about the cellphone ban in schools, from 1999 to 2026, spanning 27 years or so.
TACLOBAN SHOOTING PROMPTED GICA'S PUSH. It was the mass shooting in Tacloban City in Leyte that must have inspired and prompted Mayor Gica to use Decs/DepEd policy of almost three decades to enforce the cellphone ban in Dumanjug schools.
Count then mayor's preparation time from June 22 when tragedy struck the Tacloban high school, killing three students and wounding 13 others, from gunshots unleashed by two students, aged 14 and 15. Up to June 28, the day before what would've been Day One of the mayor's ban.
Mayor Gica had obviously wanted to wrest the cellphone initiative from DepEd, knowing how the tragedy has stoked the nation's fear of ill effects of digital abuse among the youth.
The mayor explained later that it was only one among a number of strategies in his personal and administration crusade to protect the youth and the community. Which includes rigorous check on firearms and even a "tutorial" against violence and gun-toting. Yet the mayor's uncanny timing cannot be dismissed.
DEPED ORDERS DON'T AUTHORIZE CONFISCATION OF PHONE. The Department of Education's national policy -- as laid down in its five orders since 1999 -- "focus on regulation rather than total campus ban."
Students and teachers are allowed to bring their phones to school but those "must be turned off in their bags/lockers during class hours."
In instances, when a phone or similar device disrupts the class, teachers "may take custody of the cellphone for the duration of the lesson or school day and return them only to parents or guardians."
Another reason for the phones to be handy is when the class holds an exercise requiring the use of phones. In this digital age, the phone and similar devices can be useful in some types of classroom instruction.
GICA WANTED MORE SEVERE STEPS, such as: -- Confiscating "all phones" and returning them to their owners at the end of the school year. In his Facebook post of June 28, 2026, the mayor said he "would implement a total ban on cell phones inside schools without exception."
-- Giving parents who don't wish to follow the policy the "option to transfer your children" to a school outside Dumanjug, as if it wouldn't hassle and cost them more.
In comparison, DepEd policy does not provide for arbitrary confiscation and detention.
The fifth and latest order -- DO #83, s. 2026 (March this year) -- encourages "localized" policies but provides for temporary custody of the phone by teachers and administrators. Which devices are returned at the end of the school day or directly to parents/guardians.
SHOW EXECUTIVE ORDER, SAYS DEPED. Did DepEd accept the terms of seizure of digital devices in schools, which Mayor Gica announced on the eve of the starting day of implementation?
No, DepEd instead asked for time to review procedure and conditions. But first, it wanted the terms in writing, not just announced orally or in Facebook posts.
AN EMERGING CORE ISSUE may be the extent of intervention by the town or city mayor in the operation of schools inside the jurisdiction the local government?
In the Dumanjug situation, Mayor Gica -- at least initially before he considered the boundaries of authority exercised by DepEd and the office of the mayor -- imposed the terms of the cellphone ban as he individually and personally deemed fit.
No showing that the Municipal Council, or the Provincial Board, had passed an ordinance supporting Gica's moves. As to national law, proposed bills were still pending in Congress.
MAYOR MAY INFLUENCE, NOT DICTATE. The mayor may have been trying to "influence, expand, or adjust" DepEd's national policy on the cellphone ban in schools. Justifiably, he can invoke the clause on community general welfare to support thrusts of his governance.
But on this cellphone ban issue, the moves and sounds from him and his office suggested to the public that Mayor Gica was the one initiating the ban and dictating procedure and conditions.
Read his posts and the news stories generated by his pronouncements. The public still has to read one statement from the mayor mentioning the Decs/DepEd policy as basis for "the total ban." It's Gica's idea, Gica's moves.
THE DUMANJUG EXPERIENCE may yet offer LGU chief executives in Cebu and across the country some guidance on how the local government and a national agency can work together on a potentially fractious and divisive issue.