Teachers to press demand for pay hike

MANILA, Philippines—Public school teachers will stage a series of protest actions before classes start next month to press their demand for a P10,000 salary increase.

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Teachers Dignity Coalition (TDC), which will spearhead the protest, said their demand was based on the recommendation of the Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom) in 1991 to give public school teachers a minimum monthly salary of P28,000.

The current minimum salary for public school teachers is P18,000 a month.

The last legislated salary increase for government education workers came in 2009.

TDC chair Benjo Basas said they would push through with their demand even after President Aquino rejected any wage increase during his Labor Day speech.

He said their protest actions would be held after the Santacruzan religious parades staged during the Catholic Church’s monthlong Flores de Mayo festivities during the month of May.

The mass actions will start next week with a rally in front of the Department of Budget and Management office in Malacañang.

Basas said the 1991 Edcom report, considered a benchmark study of the ills of the country’s education system, recommended that the entry-level rate for public school teachers should be at Salary Grade 16, or equivalent to about P28,000.

The last salary adjustment was enacted in 2009, when the entry level rate for government teachers was increased by P6,523 and pegged at Salary Grade 11 equivalent to P18,549.

The salary increase, however, was given in four tranches in four years between 2009 and 2012.

“The current administration only enforced what is mandated by law and just decreed the last two tranches through executive orders,” Basas said.—Dona Z. Pazzibugan