To object the P400 tax deduction from the P2,000 travel allowance of teacher-poll workers, members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) conducted a protest action in front of Palacio del Gobernador in Intramuros, Manila where the Commission on Elections (Comelec) main office is situated, Thursday, March 10.
ACT called the 20 percent deduction from the travel allowance of teachers serving during the elections as “excessive.”
“Based on reports from its regional unions, their paltry P2,000 travel allowance was subjected to 20 percent tax or a total of Php400 deduction, instead of the previously implemented and already contested five percent tax,” ACT said in a statement.
With this, ACT-NCR Union President Vladimer Quetua called on Comelec to remove the tax it is imposing to the “measly allowances and honoraria” of teacher-poll workers.
"This government is squeezing us dry. First, they refused to remunerate teacher-poll workers fair pay for their indispensable role every election. Now, they’re increasing tax impositions on what little compensation we are getting. And for what?! It's not like these taxes go to social services like health and education," he said.
ACT said it is reiterating its demand to the government to “tax-exempt election service honoraria and allowances, which the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) arbitrarily imposed in 2018.”
“The Lower House already approved on third and final reading House Bill 9652, principally authored by the ACT Teachers Party-list, that pushed for such exemption. The Senate, however, has yet to tackle its counterpart bills,” it added.
ACT also raised several concerns their group gathered from the ground that Comelec must address.
“One alarming report received by the group was the demotion of teachers from Chairperson of the Electoral Board to Third Member—which also means a lower honorarium—on the basis of positive results in antigen tests administered prior to the trainings held for members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs),” it said.
Quetua said demoting electoral board chairpersons because of a positive antigen test result during BEIs' training period is “discriminatory, inhumane, and lacks any logic."