The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) is once again demanding for a P1,500 internet allowance for public school teachers to be used during the implementation of blended learning brought by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
ACT, in a statement issued Wednesday, Nov. 3, reiterated its demand for the cash allowance to be given monthly amid reports that the Smart sim cards used for the DepEd 349 plan has allegedly “expired” for some or are set to expire within this month or three months since its activation.
“This means that teachers will no longer receive the 1GB daily data allowance and will be left with only the accumulated unused 4-GB monthly data provision, if any,” Basilio said.
ACT noted that as such, the need for DepEd to respond to the “P1,500 monthly internet allowance call is ever more urgent,” Basilio said.
“It’s time to have that overdue dialogue,” he added.
Meanwhile, ACT also submitted to both the House of Representatives and the Senate not only their growing petition for P1,500 monthly internet allowance, but also the budgetary requirements for such as Congress deliberating on the 2022 General Expenditure Bill (GAB).
Based on its estimates, ACT said that P12.54-billion will be needed to provide 835,944 public school teachers with P1,500 internet allowance for 10 months.
Basilio noted that so far, among the DepEd’s response after Malacañang forwarded its petition is providing a link to a Facebook post of the agency’s Undersecretary for Finance regarding the P5,000 cash allowance that teachers receive yearly. This, according to ACT, “will not suffice to cover the costly demands of distance learning.”
Another was DepEd Undersecretary Revsee Escobedo who, in early May, responded to ACT’s February submission of a position paper on the current educational situation under distance learning.
As a response to its internet allowance call, ACT said that Escobedo also highlighted the P5,000 cash allowance, the P300 monthly reimbursement in 2020, and the “Bayanihan 2” provision for internet load for DepEd personnel—with the last translating to the DepEd 349 plan.