Six regional unions of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines submitted a position paper urging the Department of Education (DepEd) to suspend the implementation of the twice-a-month pay scheme for teachers.
Representatives of ACT regional unions in the National Capital Region (NCR), Regions V, VI, VII, VIII, and Caraga physically filed their position papers at their counterpart DepEd offices.
ACT Secretary-General Raymond Basilio said that the group’s accredited and registered unions are duly recognized by the law as representatives of public school teachers under the DepEd.
Basilio said that five of which hold the sole and exclusive negotiating agent (SENA) status, and their Collective Negotiation Agreement—signed by both the unions and their respective DepEd regional office—explicitly requires the latter to consult the former on policies related to their employment, welfare, and rights.
“As such, DepEd is duty-bound to act on the contentions and demands being raised by their employees’ representatives,” he said.
ACT’s position paper detailed five major grounds for the said suspension. These are based on consultative meetings with and surveys for teachers nationwide.
The group is urging DepEd to suspend the said pay scheme due to lack of a democratic process of consultation; the decimation of payday take-home salaries and higher expenses; insufficient salaries relative to due dates of bills; withholding of pay release by lending institutions who have not adjusted to the new scheme; and a heavier workload for education support personnel.
The said position paper was signed by officers of 15 regional unions and the top officers of ACT Philippines.
“We have been exhausting various forms of actions to get them to listen: from protest actions, requests for dialogues, and now the official filing of position papers to their offices; but all these were either ignored, minimized, or dismissed by DepEd,” Basilio alleged.
Meanwhile, the group maintained that the twice-a-month salary scheme “brings more problems” to teachers and non-teaching staff, while the real issue as regards education workers’ pay remains unaddressed.
Instead of changing the release schedule, ACT urged DepEd to work towards raising the salaries of its employees.
“For once, DepEd should support its personnel’s just demands,” Basilio said. “The current education crisis only serves to strengthen the need to substantially raise the pay of education workers,” he added.