
LAST Sunday’s (Jan. 19) perceptive PN editorial drew attention to the plight of teachers who have fallen into the debt trap.
In the past, the Department of Education (DepEd) has reported that the take home pay of many teachers, due to their borrowing, is only P5,000 per month. Does this mean that there is a syndicate, either in, or associated with, DepEd which provides loans to teachers?
Limiting loans to teachers so that they can still “exist” on P5,000 suggests that there may be.
If so, what is the annual percentage rate of charge for the loans? Is it benign or is the rate characteristic of opportunist loan sharks?
In the past, DepEd secretary Dr Leonor Briones has suggested that many teachers are financially illiterate. Does she equate financial illiteracy to the act of borrowing? If so, this is unfair. The role of a teacher in many families is to provide household items necessary for reasonable living. Under these circumstances it is very easy for even the financial literate to fall into the debt trap.
What about banks? They seem willing to lend money for car purchase. How about household appliances?
When we talk about loan sharks, how do we define such evil? Can it be defined in quantitive terms? If a bank takes our money at zero interest and lends it to teachers at well over 20 percent, does this make the bank a loan shark?
I believe that there are circumstances under which Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) can legitimately provide “guidance” to banks to prevent exploitation.
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This brings us to the question as to how we can pay teachers properly. The die was cast many years ago when, without a proper job evaluation scheme, teachers, when fully qualified, were arbitrarily placed under the government Salary Grade 11.
Police officers and soldiers are quite rightly not equated with government clerks. Neither should teachers.
In many countries, including, previously the Philippines, police officers and teachers were paid roughly equivalent salaries. Entry level police officers have recently received a doubling of their salaries. Why not teachers? The specious argument provided was that we have more teachers (800,000) than police officers (190,000).
So what?
Within a budget of P4.1 trillion, a reasonable level for 2020, given our tax raising ability, to pay teachers P30,000 per month (an increase of approximately P10,000) is feasible. This means a teachers’ salary bill of around P24 billion per month (instead of the present P16 billion).
The salary being sought by teachers is realistic.
Do we respect teachers enough?
Parents do.
Regrettably, the government does not./PN