by Lorie Ann A. Cascaro
Gone are the days when public school teachers were looked up to in the community for their work in moulding the youth into useful citizens through education. This despite the notoriously low pay and long hours devoted not only in actual teaching but in preparing the next day’s lesson plan at home.
But that was in the past. These days teachers have to contend with their economic condition, let alone their health. Teachers have to eat, too, and have time for relaxation and for family.
Because of economic reasons, many of them have joined the exodus of thousands of their countrymen to find work in faraway places with strange sounding where they earn salaries much higher than they can hope to get in their own country. That is the assessment of the plight of public school teachers made by Kahugpungan sa Magtutudlo ug Kawani sa Edukasyon sa Mindanao (KAMKEM), an affiliation of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Davao City.
Elenito Escalante, head of the fourth year curriculum at the Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School (DRANHS) in Matina Aplaya, said that public school teachers are not exempt from the plight of other poor Filipinos. According to him, about half a million of government employees are teachers–some 7,000 of them in Davao City alone—who feel that the government is not doing enough to alleviate their plight.
Escalante cited the Magna Carta of Public School Teachers whci behooves the government toprovide them with health assistance which, unfortunately, consists only of the service of Philhealth, a government health insurance institution.
The Salary Standardization Law (SSL) III mandates an increase of P6,500 in the monthly salaries of teachers at entry level, but this still has to be implemented in four tranches or P1,625 each year. In short, the stated total amount of increase will only be completed by 2012, according to Escalante.
He pointed out that despite the increase after the second tranche, “Wala nila gihapon nabati ang increase nga P3,250 (they still couldn’t feel the increase). “Unsaon pagfeel sa increase nga dili man gihapon makaapas sa pagtaas sa presyo sa pamaliton (How could they feel the increase when by the time this happened, prices of commodities ha also increased)?”
Despite their predicament, public school teachers prefer to await improvement in their ranking rather than apply as teachers in private schools where the remuneration is much less.
Salary upgrade
House Bill 2142 or “the Public School Teachers’ Salary Upgrading Act,” if approved, will raise the minimum salary grade level of public school teachers from Salary Grade 11 (P15,649) to Salary Grade 15 (P24,887).
The bill’s principal author is Rep. Antonio Tinio of ACT Teachers Partylist, with ACT as its base organization.
Tinio said it will cover public school teachers in elementary and secondary schools, including those in vocational and technical schools and state universities and colleges, whether nationally or locally-funded.
Struggle with the GSIS
Aside from the retirement pay that all public teachers are entitled to, loan servicing is also offered by the GSIS, a government owned and controlled insurance company.
However, the teachers, along with all government employees, have to contend with the long standing problem of the GSIS regarding its system of posting and recording of payments.
He said that even if their salaries had been automatically deducted of the monthly contributions and payment for loans (if any), they find out later upon re-loaning that they still owe the GSIS as per records.
“For them to avail of another loan in spite of the unpaid dues, the GSIS deducts part of the amount of the loan to pay for the alleged balance that is due. This is illegal because the balance should have been paid as indicated in their pay slips,” he said.
Although the GSIS has the lowest interest rate compared to banks and other lending institutions, he said, they still have difficulty paying for their loans as the interest accrues by the month due to unrecorded payments.
This issue has already been raised by the ACT Teachers party list with the GSIS national office, even to the extent of staging protest demonstrations. This resulted in the filing of a libel suit by Winston Garcia, GSIS president, against the leader of ACT Teachers.
Instead of being cowed, the emboldened teachers campaigned for Garcia’s ouster.
Decent life
Is the basic salary of P15,000 sufficient for public school teachers and their families to have a decent existence? Will teaching remain a decent profession in the eyes of today’s generation? Take note—the pay is better in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) most of whose members do not have a college degree to speak of, even for those who do not have any degree.
It a recent report, the number of Davao City applicants to the Philippine Military Academy has doubled. Escalante said the reason may be that, aside from being a government scholar, a first year PMA cadet receives P21,000 as stipend. So, who wants to be a public school teacher these days?
