Migration to private schools should not be used as an “excuse” not to grant the demand of teachers for a pay hike, a group of education workers on Thursday, Sept. 15 said.

“Using the old and worn-out private school card to deflect calls for salary upgrading is just a baseless and lousy excuse,” said Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Chairman Vladimer Quetua.

ACT said this as a reaction to Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte’s statement that raising public school teachers’ salaries will cause the migration of teachers from private to public schools.

Quetua pointed out that private schools did not close down during the pandemic due to the exodus of teachers but due to the transfer of many students from private to public schools.

“It is due to the government’s failure to cushion the economic impacts of the pandemic on the livelihood of Filipino families and to provide ample support to private schools,” he added.

ACT also urged DepEd to be more worried about the diaspora of teachers due to low pay in the country.

“In no time, we will be losing the best of our teachers both in the public and private sector if the government does not remedy our situation quickly,” Quetua said.

With teachers in both public and private schools in the Philippines remaining “underpaid,” ACT said that many of them have been going to various countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and China --- among others --- just to find higher-paying jobs.

“Leaving their own families and the Filipino students that they vowed to serve is a difficult decision that teachers make, but the government is leaving us with no other choice, especially with such stance of the DepEd being unsupportive of our call for salary upgrading,” Quetua said.

ACT stressed that the government, being the biggest employer of teachers, is “well in the position and has the responsibility” to set their salaries to decent levels.

“In fact, it should also subsidize the salaries of teachers in small private schools which truly have no capacity to pay decent salaries to their teachers’ if it sees these private schools as partners in education delivery,” Quetua added.