Several media practitioners, who worked on lessons for the television-based instruction used under distance learning of the Department of Education (DepEd) this school year, are appealing to the agency to help them in their plight for “justice and respect.”
Media workers organized themselves in a virtual press briefing on March 2 to air their grievances against Ei2 Tech, Inc which is a production firm owned by broadcast journalist Paolo Bediones.
“This is a project of DepEd at a time of a pandemic and while we were not directly hired by the agency, we were also also a part of it - collectively,” said Bernadette Neri in Filipino. She used to produce materials for the “DepEd TV” for the episodes made for the First Quarter of the current school year
As a government agency, Neri said that it is part of its mandate and moral responsibility to ensure fair and just treatment to workers. “We would also like to take note that while we did not work directly with DepEd, we are ‘teachers’ too,” she added.
Neri, along with other media workers - most of whom were executive producers (EPs) of Ei2 Tech - shared their experiences while working for DepEd TV. Their primary concern is that many of them “have yet to receive their salaries” months after working for the project.
Due to the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 situation in the country, DepEd was forced to shift into alternative learning delivery modalities when it opened the School Year (SY) 2020-2021 in October.
Aside from modular and online modalities, DepEd came up with “DepEd TV” where lessons for various grade levels are discussed by teacher-broadcasters. These episodes are broadcasted over various channels so students - who are currently under home-based learning - can watch the lessons on their TV screens. These episodes are are also shown online.
DepEd tapped Ei2 Tech, Inc. to produce the episodes for distance learning under DepEd TV in 2020.
During the virtual meeting, media workers shared their bad experiences while working under E2i Tech for the DepEd TV project. Many of them are complaining about delayed compensation - with some noting that they “have not yet received full payment for the work they rendered” - since September last year.
Erri Rojo, who worked as one of the EPs for DepEd TV, claimed that the media workers were promised to receive their payment in December last year but until now, “no compensation” has been sent to them by Ei2 Tech. Instead of addressing their concerns, she claimed Bediones “got mad at them” “threatened” them that he would sue them for libel.
Despite submitting the requirements asked by Ei2 Tech, former EP George Vincent Gamayo said that their payments were still not given to them. “We have been patiently waiting, we’re trying to understand them but until now, we still don’t know what is when will this be fixed - we just want to get over it,” he said.
Former EPs Charrie Avendaño and Jaerold Marc Ramos, video editor Danrei Vidal, and illustrator Eman Paelmo shared the same issues and concerns. Aside from compensation issues, the workers claim of suffering physical, emotional and mental health issues after working for DepEd TV.
Paelmo lamented that how many of them they treated “inhumanely.” He noted that many of those that were part of the project were young talents. “Since it was a bad experience for them, they might think this industry is also bad,” he added in Filipino.
A veteran in the industry, Paelmos also did not understand why were the media practitioners were treated unfairly. “There was just too much disrespect and we don’t know why because we all did our job,” he added.
Lawyer Henrie Enaje also urged DepEd to issue a “clear” statement in favor of the media workers. “All they are asking for is to be paid for the work they did for DepEd TV and it is part of DepEd’s moral obligation and accountability to look into this,” he added.
Manila Bulletin reached out to Bediones and DepEd Undersecretary for Administration Alain Pascua for comments but none has been issued yet as of this writing.