Education workers call for salary upgrading

CEBU, Philippines — Education workers in Central Visayas have amplified their long-time demand for salary upgrading and benefits for all their colleagues nationwide through a Zumba activity.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Region VII Union and the All UP Academic Employees Union- UP Cebu Chapter recently held the activity dubbed as “Zumba sa Panaghiusa Alang sa Sweldo ug Panglawas”.

Teachers and workers raised their calls for salary grade (SG) 15 for Teacher 1, SG 16 for Instructor 1, and P33,000 for employees with SG 1.

ACT Region VII Union president Antonia Maamo-Lim said that the current salary of teachers and education workers in the country is unlivable.

“The current monthly gross salary of Teacher 1 is only salary grade 11 which amounts to P27,000 and if we deduct our monthly tax contribution plus Pag-IBIG, PhilHealth, and GSIS, teachers will only receive a net take home pay of P23,465.50,” said Lim, in a statement.

While public school teachers receive an entry SG 11, other government employees who are under SG 1 only receive a monthly net take home pay of P11,470.

According to the data of Ibon Foundation in November 2022, a family of five needs P34,350 to meet their basic needs in a month.

“Teachers and government employees receive an insufficient salary, way far beyond the ideal amount of P34,350 to provide the needs of our families such as food, bills, and education for our children,” Lim said.

Lim cited data from ACT Philippines that public employees with SG 1 to SG 13 who compose 76 percent of the population based from DBM Staffing Summary for 2022 are not receiving living wages.

The All UP Academic Employees Union- UP Cebu Chapter also reiterated the right of all workers to be compensated accordingly and stated that this right has been supposedly protected by different international laws and even by our very own 1987 Philippine Constitution under Article 13 which stipulates that “(All workers) shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage.”

“The current condition of our teachers, government employees, and even ordinary workers who receive a minimum wage, while other workers do not have any benefit, is nothing but outrageous! Our salary cannot even cope with the increasing prices of basic commodities,” said Prof. Noe Santillan, vice president of the All UP Academic Employees Union- UP Cebu Chapter.

In the same statement, Santillan said that while there’s a huge chunk of questionable intelligence funds for DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte, teachers and education workers who are overworked remain to be under-supported, underpaid, and neglected.

“Our educators who play an essential role in shaping the minds of the generations to come and who do the actual work on ground are the very ones who perish in this kind of system. Not to mention the unbearable condition that they have to undergo in holding classes in classrooms with no proper ventilation amid the high heat index,” added Santillan.

Lim further added that the economic issues faced by the teachers are answered by red-tagging and attacks by the Department of Education Secretary and Vice President Sara Duterte.

Lim added that they have been pushing for salary grade increase, humane working conditions, and other interests of our teachers and education workers

“What DepEd can do is to simply heed and address these matters with urgency instead of red-tagging and attacking us, as if these are not the real concerns of the teachers,” Lim further said. —/GMR (FREEMAN NEWS)