TEACHERS got the most disappointing “gifts” on the recent World Teachers’ Day. While the President did not even waste a word for teachers on their special day, Education secretary Leonor Briones callously announced there would be no salary increase for the mentors. The bad news partnered with the report that inflation peaked at 6.7 percent in September, causing further drop to the value of salaries as prices continually surge.
Instead of furthering and advocating the teachers’ cause, Briones painted teachers as burdens to the people by asking the crowd whether they were willing to pay more taxes so teachers could be granted a salary increase. This attempt to pit teachers’ interests against that of the public is an old tactic played by the government to get away with its accountability in relation to our current predicament.
Funny how the government suddenly seems to care about burdensome taxes when it just rammed the TRAIN Law to our throats to exact enough funding for the doubling of salaries of police and military personnel.
Briones further made the teachers’ demand appear absurd by pegging the teachers’ pay hike cost at a bloated amount of P350 billion. In fact, P100 billion could sufficiently fund our demand for the increase in the entry-level salary of teachers to P30,000 and increase as well by 30 percent the salaries of all teaching and non-teaching personnel of the agency.
This sum is a small amount compared to, say, the unearthed P500 billion hidden pork barrel fund for the President’s allies in the 2019 budget, or the hundreds of billions allocated for the war on drugs, promotion of federalism, and counter-insurgency.
No imposition of new taxes will even be necessary to grant the pay hike if the Bureau of Internal Revenue efficiently do its job to recover the yearly uncollected P300 billion in taxes. While teachers are being humiliated and made to feel like ingrates for asking for the much-needed pay hike, the government is willing to give big corporations billions worth of tax discounts under the TRAIN 2.
Apparently to make up for the big letdown, DepEd flaunted its rather clumsy list of accomplishments and plans. It claimed the release of hefty amounts for anniversary bonus, special hardship allowance, and teaching overload allowance, which in fact are complaints of many divisions to be either late or lacking. It even took credit for the increase in chalk allowance and election service honoraria when these were concrete fruits of teachers’ arduous lobbying and campaigns.
Education workers have always been active agents of and integral to nation building. Teachers are hardworking public servants dedicated to providing the best possible education for the youth, the future of our nation, despite the grim state of the education system. They deserve to be granted their just demands for substantial salary increase and humane working conditions.
