(We yield this space to the statement of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
FOLLOWING through Malacañang’s statement that preparations are underway for the fulfillment of President Duterte’s promise of raising teachers’ salaries, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines urges the President to involve the teachers in the course of its preparation. Teachers are keen on taking part in the discussions as they want to ensure that the pay hike will be of substantial amount and will be done in the soonest time possible.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the President “is not reneging on his promise to raise teachers’ salaries” and in fact has directed his economic managers to look for fund sources for it. But we cannot just leave the matter in the hands of the budget and education agencies as they have had misgivings on granting substantial pay hike to teachers. Both agencies had for many times argued against the public teachers’ just demand, citing that they were better paid than their private counterparts and that there was no budget.
The Department of Budget and Management has been quoted many times saying that a major consideration on their study to increase the salary of government employees is their counterpart rate in the private sector. Teachers are worried that the same benchmarking on the private sector pay will be used, as with the salary adjustments previously implemented. Such framework is the very basis of why teachers got the lowest pay hike in the Aquino administration’s four-tranche salary adjustment for government workers, which ends this year.
It is plainly wrong to deny public school teachers of just compensation only because private schools would not provide humane salary levels to their teachers. Basic education is dominated by the state sector with 90 percent of the teacher population being public school teachers. The government should be the one setting the standards on teachers’ pay based on the value of their contribution to society and as provided by the Magna Carta of Public School Teachers which states that teachers’ salaries should be able to afford them decent standards of living.
