Last heart's day, a significant move for educators was made by the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives proposing a drastic increase in teachers’ salaries.
Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas, Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel, and ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro filed House Bill No. 9920, which aims to hike the minimum monthly salary for teachers to P50,000.
The legislators stated in their explanatory note that they intended to correct the distortion brought about by the doubling of entry-level pay for military and uniformed personnel, as well as the disparity between teachers' salary and the cost of living.
According to Castro, if this is approved, the basic pay for public school teachers—which is currently at P27,000 per month—would nearly treble. According to the Salary Standardization Law (SSL), this would also be approximately equal to Salary Grade (SG) 15.
In addition to the suggested raise, the measure calls for public school teachers' and education support staff members' salaries to be adjusted annually "to keep pace with the cost of living."
Currently, data say that the country employs over 803,000 teachers in Teacher 1 to Teacher 3 roles, paying them SG 11, or roughly P20,179, under the SSL.
This would be "insufficient to meet the family living wage of P1,119 per day or P33,570 per month in order to support a family of five, " according to the Makabayan lawmakers.
They pointed out that under the Duterte government, other front-line workers, including police and military, received pay rises ranging from 50 to 100 percent, while teachers received raises of just more than P6,000 dispersed over four years.
They said that one of the reasons teachers "would rather work abroad despite the risks and hazards to earn almost thrice or eight times the entry-level salary" is that these "measly increases" are "quickly eaten away by inflation and excise taxes."
Source: Inquirer.Net
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