MANILA, Philippines – Under DeptEd TV, a Department of Education (DepEd) program, Karlo (not his real name) was tasked to deliver hard drives containing video lectures to television networks which would then air them to aid students amid the coronavirus pandemic.
However, at one point, Karlo was on the verge of losing his home due to delayed salaries from the private company that DepEd partnered with for the project. Karlo was supposed to earn P20,000 per month, including gasoline costs for his motorcycle.
In the eyes of some DepEd TV workers, the cameras may have stopped rolling, but the fight for the unpaid workers’ salaries seems to be far from over. As of January 2022, the unpaid salaries have ballooned to at least P42 million, the workers claimed.
In July 2020, DepEd partnered with Ei2Tech, a production company owned by TV broadcaster Paolo Bediones, for DepEd TV which was launched to aid in students’ learning, as the education sector continues to adapt to distance learning prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. DepEd has allocated around P45 million for the first phase of the project.
As part of the agreement, workers were supposed to produce video lectures based on the modules of Kindergarten to Grade 12 students. The lectures were to be aired on various television channels–the first batch of production was for the first quarter of school year 2020-2021 which ran from October to December 2020.
As early as December 2020, workers have made public their complaints about delayed salaries.
Fourteen months later, the workers claim the story remains the same.
Producers for DepEd TV told INQUIRER.net that unpaid services for workers have soared to at least P42 million as of October 2021. This remains unsettled as of January 2022, our sources, who opted to not be named, claimed.
Unpaid salaries
The salaries were supposed to be paid twice a month, said our sources who worked as producers of DepEd TV under Ei2Tech. Jack (not his real name), one of the producers, said this was not followed.
Jack said the delays dragged on for months and workers began to complain, prompting Bediones to promise to settle the unpaid workers’ payments by December 2020.
“All of the people in production are hopeful and excited. They were looking forward to December 18, 2020 – but it never happened. No payments took place,” Jack said, speaking in a mix of English and Filipino, in an interview with INQUIRER.net.
“That’s what the people are holding on because we are all professionals. If you tell us December 18, OK, we will continue to work but do your part. When December 18 came, there was no money. The reason: They said the funding did not arrive. There was a little bit of money but it has to be shared,” he added.
Emotions among workers were high, Jack said, as the Christmas season was approaching and many of the workers relied on the compensation they were promised to be paid, to no avail. Some production members opted to leave the team and talk about stopping the operations started to surface.
“Everyone’s concern is how to move forward to quarter two — and to subsequent TV lessons that cannot be edited and produced — because the school year will not stop anyway,” Jack said.
Some members of the production team eventually agreed to continue with the operations despite the delays in compensation, citing the need to help the education sector. Jack said that in turn, Bediones promised to secure private funding.
Jack claimed that during this time, Bediones assured workers that they will be paid through funding from a private company, which amounts to around P45 million, that will be released soon.
Production for the second quarter and third quarter (January to June 2021) continued but by June 2021, salaries of workers remained unsettled completely–some of whom are for services back from the first quarter.
“July passed, August passed, September passed — we heard nothing,” Jack said.
Private funding already settled
Maria (not her real name), another producer for DepEd TV under Ei2Tech, said that the promise of the private funding to be used as payment for the unsettled salaries pushed the workers to continue working for the second and third quarter.
“He [Bediones] kept mentioning that he would be able to get sponsorship, and from that sponsorship, we will be able to pay our people. So for me, there’s hope,” Maria said.
“We rushed to produce the TV lessons some we could collect right away,” she added.
But there were no updates from Bediones’ part regarding the private funding despite questions from the workers, said Maria.
By September 2021, Maria said they found out through a “very credible source” that the private funding was secured as early as July 2021.
“My feeling was that we were betrayed: You were already paid in July How come we were not paid by August and September?” Maria said.
According to Maria, when they confronted Bediones about it, the broadcaster claimed that the money was used to pay other matters such as van rentals and payment of salaries of workers who filed a complaint before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and National Labor Relation Commission (NLRC).
“What I said was: ‘You should have prioritized the people because we were able to sell those TV lessons because our production team members worked hard for it. Why did you hide it from us?’” Maria said.
Maria said, that in response, Bediones told her that he would once again bid for the second phase of the project which, according to the website of the DepEd, amounts to a whopping P654 million which can be used to settle the unpaid salaries.
“So the award of the project [Phase 2] really depended on you paying us? What if you don’t win?” Maria said.
The series of delays prompted the production team to stop operations starting the first week of October 2021. They informed Bediones’ office regarding this through an email dated Oct. 4.
In the said email shared by the producers to INQUIRER.net, the production team informed Bediones of the operations’ “hard stop so that our backpays/unpaid professional fees be updated first before we proceed, so we could also help the groups recuperate for further losses.”
Maria said there was another promise to settle the unpaid salaries by December 15, 2021; and January 15 and 24, 2022 but this did not come to fruition either.
By that time, the unpaid salaries had ballooned to P42 million, Maria claimed.
‘Extremely bloated’
But Bediones said the amount was “extremely bloated.”
“This is an extremely bloated figure because it includes unfinished work, and the signed contracts are output based for the freelancers,” he said in a text message to INQUIRER.net.
Bediones, however, did not deny that some payments had been delayed, attributing this to a “lack of funding which the company is trying to rectify.”
He explained that over P85 million in both public and private funding had been spent on the project.
“This is all well documented and audited,” he said.
For talent fees alone, Bediones said disbursement has reached P70 million. On top of this, there are overhead and capital expenses as well as costs for van rentals, antigen testing, accommodations, and travel for “lock-in shoots”, food, and “so many more expenses for more than a year.”
“The amount generated was just enough for Phase 1 to be completed and continue a few months of operations,” he noted.
Bediones said payments were “continuously being disbursed” until November 2021.
“However a production as big as this, in hindsight, probably needed more people who could manage the volume of transactions and records of each freelancer with varying agreed upon output,” he said.
“There were some who were left behind by their leaders last year and it took them a while to get in touch with us,” he added.
Nonetheless, Bediones admitted that one of the company’s “biggest mistakes” was “agreeing with the team to continue operations even if we all knew the funding was not secured yet.”
“But the buck stops here, and the company is responsible for eventually taking that risk. We all most likely had the desire to keep having educational content available for millions of students and keep DepEd TV on the air,” Bediones said.
On the part of the DepEd, Education Undersecretary Alain Pascua, head of the department’s procurement management service, said the issue of the unsettled payments is an internal matter between the company and the workers.
Pascua insisted that DepEd had already settled its payables to Bediones’ company, which the TV broadcaster confirmed.
“We are not directly in relation with the workers,” Pascua told INQUIRER.net over the phone. “As far as the DepEd is concerned…bayad na lahat ‘yun. At naibigay na rin ng supplier (Ei2) lahat ng required number of episodes, so binayaran na.”
“With regards dun sa kanyang crew, hindi na namin hawak yun,” Pascua added.
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