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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Friday, February 3, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Around 3,000 public school teachers are expected to join the call for salary increase during today’s “National Day of Protest.”
After their classes around 4 p.m., they will gather at the Fountain of Justice in front of the old city hall and march toward and around the public plaza.
Eleanor Seva, president of the Teacher’s League in District 7 of the Department of Education – Division of Bacolod City, said they will wear black T-shirts and armbands to “mourn the death of [their] hope for a change to come.”
Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines declared Feb. 3 as a “National Day of Protest,” ACT-Negros president Gualberto Dajao said.
Protest actions will be simultaneous across the country, said Dajao, also president of the Bacolod City Public School Teachers Federation.
“This is to demand that President Rodrigo Duterte certify House Bill No. 56, authored by ACT-Teachers party-list representatives, as urgent,” teachers led by Dajao told a news conference at the Negros Press Club.
The bill seeks a P25,000 starting salary for teachers; P27,000 for higher education teachers; P16,000 starting salary of nonteaching personnel and other government employees; and P5,000 for the personnel economic relief allowance, or PERA.
The Benigno Aquino administration increased the daily salaries of low-level teachers and government employees by P24, and yet the latter’s take-home pay was not enough, while those in top-level positions enjoyed an enormous raise, they claimed.
“Politicians and technocrats dream of quality education without improving the plight of the teachers — a stupidity that must be realized,” they said in a statement. “Who carries the task of educating the Filipino children? With our teachers anguishing in poverty, could they effectively deliver quality education?”
According to ACT-Negros, “past administrations denied teachers and government employees a decent life,” and teachers in the Philippines get the lowest salary compared to those in other countries.
“South Korean teachers receive from P59,000 to P120,000, while teachers in Malaysia receive between P70,000 and P90,000. Teachers in Japan receive from P94,000 to P235,000,” it said. “Filipino teachers, on the other hand, receive only between P19,000 and P22,000, not to mention how much is left after mandatory deductions and taxes.”
While Duterte during the presidential campaign promised to raise the salaries of teachers, “this administration is just implementing the second tranche of Executive Order No. 201, series of 2016 [of] the Aquino administration, giving a little more than P24 a day increase to most classroom teachers and government employees.”
“Is the change the President had promised coming?” said ACT-Negros./PN
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