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Rep. Antonio Tinio
Privilege Speech
on the National
Teachers’ Month
September 8, 2012
This coming Wednesday, September 5, marks the opening of
National Teachers’ Month, declared in 2011 per President Aquino’s
Proclamation 242, to “celebrate the unique role and service” of teachers.
“To express sincere gratitude for teachers,” DepEd has advised its
regional and division offices and students to give “thank you” cards, free
makeover and spa treatments, discounts, or freebies to teachers, also to
hang streamers and hold contests to honor teachers, from September 5 to
October 5.
The culminating date, October 5, is celebrated all over the world as
Teachers’ Day to mark the adoption on that day of the Recommendation
concerning the Status of Teachers in 1966 at a special intergovernmental
conference convened by ILO and UNESCO in Paris. For nearly forty-six
years, the Recommendation has served as the international frame of
reference for standards on the rights and welfare of teachers, including
adequate remuneration, stability of employment and security of tenure, and
conditions for effective teaching—on such issues as class size, hours of
work, school rooms, and the like.
Who would say “no” to an entire month of tributes, free spa, discounts,
“thank you” cards, or a grand celebration in one’s honor? But Madam
Speaker, my dear colleagues, I invite you to approach any teacher, and ask
him or her: How do you like to be thanked? The most meaningful way of
commemorating National Teachers’ Month, the most sincere expression of
gratitude for our children’s second parents, is by giving full effect to
their rights—to living salary, adequate remuneration, stability of
employment and security of tenure, professional advancement, union rights,
among others.
While the Executive branch says, “Let’s thank teachers,” it seems its show
of gratitude ends with “thank you” cards and a “grand celebration.” The
DepEd budget is proposed at P231.4 billion under the proposed General
Appropriations Act for 2013, the highest appropriation in all departments.
While this looks rosy for the education sector, the President and the
Aquino administration merely continues the trend of inadequate funding for
education. Since at least 2004, the government has not given DepEd a
budget higher than 1.98% of the GDP, or 11.8% of the total national
budget. Next year, DepEd’s budget is only 1.92% of GDP and 11.53% of the
total P2.006 trillion national budget. Since this inadequate budgetary
allocation translates to measly salaries and shortages in critical
resources down to the smallest schools, teachers bear most of its impact.
President Aquino vowed to create, by June next year, 61,510 new teacher
items. We must give credit where credit is due; we laud this unprecedented
move of the creation of a massive number of new teacher items. Normally,
in previous years, the national government would only fund 10,000 to
14,000 new items, so this is indeed very welcome and long overdue, as the
public school system has long been beset by extreme teacher shortages.
However, we must take issue with the following statement made by the
President in his 2013 budget call. Let me quote:
“We also aim to fully cover the shortfall in quality public school
teachers by allocating P13.4 billion for the creation of 61,510 teaching
positions.”
In particular, we take issue with the statement that by 2013, the shortage
of teachers will be fully covered. The fact is, in spite of the creation
of this unprecedented number of teaching items, it will still not cover
the shortfall of 49,530 teaching positions which are funded by the local
government, nor will it cover the shortfall of over 23,000 volunteer
Kindergarten teachers employed by DepEd through contracts of service. So,
in other words, far from solving the issue of teacher shortages by 2013,
there will remain a shortage of at least 64,000 teachers by 2013.
The proposed budget by 2013 is in fact still unfortunately marred by the
policy of contractualization in the teaching profession. Beginning school
year 2011-2012, DepEd hired, as I said, volunteer Kindergarten teachers.
This school year, the volunteers number around 23,000 and they all receive
an “honorarium” which forces them to live within a budget of as low as
P100 a day. They are paid from P3,000 to P6,000 per class per month,
remuneration which is unconscionably low considering the P425-minimum wage
in NCR and the unchecked increases in the prices of basic needs of the
ordinary family. They also do not enjoy benefits normally received by
regular teachers of the national government, nor do they have security of
tenure, much less do they have the right to form and join unions.
Several rights of public school teachers are threatened by this practice,
so we strongly urge the Aquino administration to abandon this policy of
placing public school teachers in precarious employment through contracts
of service. We call on the administration to allocate sufficient Personal
Services funds under the DepEd budget for their immediate regularization.
But pending that, we also urge Aquino to immediately increase the monthly
honoraria of volunteer Kindergarten teachers from P3,000 per class per
month to at least P6,000 per month. So, in other words, we call for a
doubling of these honoraria.
Contractualization is even more prevalent in state universities and
colleges. According to last year’s budget hearing, when asked how many new
teaching items will be created for all these state universities and
colleges for 2013, the answer given by CHED is that there will be zero new
items created for 2012. That is also true for 2012. In fact, the trend has
been in a reduction in the number of full time faculty positions in state
universities and colleges. In 2002, the Philippine Normal University had
385 faculty positions, but next year, it will only have 383. From 2003 to
the present, the six SUCs of MIMAROPA collectively lost 106 faculty
positions, and the eleven SUCs in Western Visayas lost 70. On the other
hand, enrolment in these regions, as well nationally, increase year by
year by around 3,200 and 8,400, respectively at an average of 75,700
students yearly nationwide. So in other words, the trend has been the
reduction in regular faculty positions in SUCs while enrolment has been
increasing.
Because the numbers of regular faculty cannot keep up with the increase in
enrolment, SUCs resort to hiring contractual faculty out of savings or to
the hiring of several part-timers out of the budget for one regular
teaching item. Again, these teachers, called part-time teachers, receive
less than their full-time counterparts despite the fact that they all take
the same teaching loads and responsibilities, with no benefits and no
security of tenure.
Now, we move on to salaries. The total personal services budget of DepEd
and the SUCs for 2013 have no room for salary increases. With the
implementation of the last tranche of SSL3, teachers in basic and tertiary
education, along with non-teaching personnel in public schools, are
worried that their salaries will remain stagnant despite the unceasing
rise in the cost of living. Will we see a repeat of the previous
experiences regarding public sector pay where, after the implementation of
SSL, there will follow several years of a “salary freeze” for our public
sector employees? We certainly hope not.
Teaching and non-teaching personnel also expect no supplement to their
meager salaries, in the form of benefits or incentives. President Aquino
has allotted P9.9 billion for a system of performance-based bonuses for
2013, but its implementing rules, among them Executive Order 80 and DBM
Memorandum Circular 2012-01, banned any increase in the rates of existing
bonuses and the grant of new bonuses. We view these executive issuances as
attacks against the rights of teachers and other civil servants to
adequate remuneration and other means of job satisfaction and fulfilment,
particularly to their right to collective negotiation.
This brief review of state policies as embodied in the national budget
pertaining to teachers and the education sector shows that the Executive
could do much more to show gratitude to our teachers and to educators.
Starting this Wednesday, teachers will be hearing DepEd and the President
saying “thank you” for an entire month, but they will feel no sincere
gratitude from the government for the coming year. Teachers still receive
a starting salary of P18,549 monthly or Salary Grade 11, a compensation
incommensurate to their vital roles in society. They still have to manage
oversized classes up to 70 to 90 students each, with two, three, even four
sessions each day. An increasing number of them are unsure if they would
still be hired as teachers once their contracts end, on top of the anxiety
caused by very low honoraria. They will discover that their union rights,
which they have begun to enjoy only recently, will be severely diluted
with their inability to negotiate for bonuses to supplement their
salaries.
In this coming World Teachers’ Month, this
representation urges the Executive and Legislative branches in the
strongest terms: Stop the systematic denial of teachers’ rights.
Immediately enact legislation that answers the teachers’ legitimate
demands, among them House Bills 2142 for the upgrading of teachers’
salaries from Salary Grade 11 to Salary Grade 15 and HB 3746 for a P6,000
increase in the basic pay of public employees.
On 15 December 2011, this Congress took one significant step forward in
expressing gratitude for teachers by approving on third reading HB 4097,
“An Act Declaring October 5 of Every Year as ‘National Teachers’ Day’.”
Today, I urge you, my colleagues, to take a more significant step further.
Let us approve the aforementioned House Bills, and like-minded bills and
resolutions on the rights and welfare of teachers in the soonest possible
time, and convince our colleagues at the Senate that enacting laws that
protect teachers’ rights and welfare is the best way of to commemorate
World Teachers’ Day.
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