Comelec eyes bigger pay for teachers

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Saturday said it would look into the proposal to increase or double the allowance of teachers who would render service in the May 2016 polls.

“We will definitely look into increasing their honoraria,” said Comelec Chair Andres Bautista in a text message.

“The Comelec recognizes the invaluable services and efforts of our teachers,” he added.

However, he admitted that “we are constrained by the budget given to us by law.”

“Nonetheless, we will look into it.”

Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza had proposed that public school teachers rendering service during the elections be given an P8,000 honorarium instead of the Comelec’s offer of P4,000.

Atienza also opposed a bill seeking to make public teachers’ election service optional, saying he feared the measure would be exploited by politicians for their own purpose.

House Bill No. 5412 authored by Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio seeks to make poll duty voluntary for public teachers and would allow the Comelec to appoint national government employees, private school teachers and any qualified Filipino citizen to man the polling precincts.

Earlier, Education Secretary Armin Luistro formally asked the Comelec to make it optional for public school teachers to be members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI), as he cited the threats and acts of violence and intimidation experienced by teachers during elections.

While saying that the poll body would look into the possibility of increasing the teachers’ allowance, Bautista hinted that they would most likely heed the request of the DepEd.

“We believe that we do not need to compel any teacher to serve,” he said.

“One of the good things about automated elections is that we will need fewer teachers. Our current estimate is [we will need] 300,000 teachers and there are over 630,000 teachers nationwide,” he said.