Education is the foundation of all things that an individual can accomplish in life. That’s why teachers are arguably the most important members of society. In the Philippines, aside from performing the noble task of teaching the youth, educators are also called to man the polling precincts every election day. Part of their tasks is to ensure free, honest, and clean elections.
In the May 2022 presidential elections, a total of 647,812 teaching and non-teaching staff from the Department of Education were tapped to serve as poll workers.
The teachers were dismayed when President Marcos vetoed in July a bill seeking tax exemption on poll workers’ honoraria. ACT NCR Union President Vladimir Quetua said the President’s veto on the bill is a grave disrespect to the level of commitment and dedication that the teachers have shown during the elections.
The decision to veto the bill is a snub to all the hardships and sacrifices that the teachers gave amid the pandemic and other threats to their security and safety in an election where President Marcos won, Quetua said, adding that the government should not think of the P1.5 billion potential revenue loss for the tax exemption as a waste of the people’s money because it’s just a small way to thank the millions of teachers and other DepEd staff for their poll services.
Two months after the veto, more than 100 teachers in the Visayas resigned to search for better job opportunities outside the country. “It is heart-breaking how our teachers who started teaching full of good intentions to mentor our youth eventually got demoralized upon experiencing first-hand how the teaching profession is treated in our country,” the Alliance of Concerned Teachers said.
As more and more educators are leaving the service to apply for better-paying jobs overseas, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers said the government has to upgrade teachers’ salary levels.
Here’s a sad news: The salary of more than half of licensed teachers in private educational institutions is lower than the current minimum wage, according to data shared by a former government statistician. Romulo A. Virola, former secretary general of the National Statistical Coordination Board, one of the agencies that now make up the Philippine Statistics Authority, said teachers in the country also handled larger classes compared to their Asean counterparts. Citing data from the 2019 Public School Teachers Salary in the Philippines in www.teacherph, Virola said 60 percent of licensed teachers in private schools earn P12,500 a month. The minimum wage in Metro Manila is P570 or P14,820 a month (Read, “Pay of licensed private school teachers below current minimum wage,” in the BusinessMirror, October 21, 2022).
Among public school teachers, Virola said the increases in their salaries every year may not even be enough to cover for inflation.
The salaries of Teacher I, II, and III reached P20,754, P22,938, and P25,232, respectively in 2019. The increase in their salaries reached 1.41 percent for Teacher I between 2012 and 2018 and 2.85 percent between 2018 and 2019. Teachers classified as Teacher II or Salary Grade 12 saw their salaries rise by 1.77 percent between 2012 and 2018, while the increase was at 3.56 percent between 2018 and 2019. Those classified under Teacher III or Salary Grade 13 saw a 2.06-percent increase in their salaries in the 2012 to 2018 period, and 4.16 percent growth in 2018 to 2019.
“With consumer price index annual inflation rates of 2.39 percent in 2020, 3.93 percent in 2021, and 5.1 percent up to September 2022, it is doubtful that the total salaries of teachers, particularly Teachers I, II, and III, and Head Teachers I, II, and III, could cope with the rate at which prices of commodities have been increasing because of the pandemic,” Virola said.
Teaching is a tough job, and there’s this perception among our educators that they are being treated a society’s underclass. Lack of appreciation and low compensation are perhaps the biggest reasons why the teaching profession can’t attract the best and the brightest.
We can’t pay back our teachers for their sacrifices. But we can show them that they are greatly appreciated and treasured. One way to do this is for government to increase teacher funding and support to stop the emasculation and demoralization of their ranks.