Bill on supplies allowance for teachers reaches Senate plenary debates
A bill, institutionalizing the grant of P3,500 supplies allowance for public school teachers, has been elevated for plenary debates in the Senate.
Fourteen of 24 senators signed Committee Report No. 5 to bring to the plenary Senate Bill No. 812 also known as the Teaching Supplies Allowance Act of 2016.
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, chair of the Senate committee on civil service, government reorganization and professional regularization, sponsored the committee report on the floor last week.
Trillanes’ committee along with the Senate committees on education chaired by Senator Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, and on finance chaired by Senator Loren Legarda, conducted the hearings on the measure.
Under the bill, a public school teacher would be granted P3,500 for the purchase of chalks, erasers, forms and other classroom supplies and materials.
“The grant of cash allowance authorized in this Act shall be limited to teachers, who are engaged in actual classroom teaching in public basic education,” it said.
The Secretary of Education, under the bill, was mandated to conduct a periodic review of the teaching supplies allowance “taking into account the current prices of classroom supplies, and, if warranted, recommend the necessary increase in the amount of allowance.”
Both chambers of Congress—the Senate and the House of Representatives—must pass the bill before it is transmitted to the President for signature.
The 14 senators who signed the committee report were Senators Trillanes, Aquino, Legarda, Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Cynthia Villar, Gregorio Honasan II, Grace Poe, Nancy Binay, Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, Risa Hontiveros, Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Juan Miguel Zubiri, and Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto. RAM
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