(MANILA BULLETIN)

Public school teachers who toiled beyond working hours during the recent Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) deserve to get overtime pay.

Thus, said House Deputy Minority leader ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro Friday, Oct. 30, or four days removed from the BSKE.

"Dapat na mabigyan ng overtime pay ang mga gurong nagsilbi lagpas sa itinakdang oras sa nakaraang BSKE. Tiniis uli nila ang hirap, pagod at puyat para magkaroon ng maayos na halalan kaya dapat lang na suklian naman ang kanilang pagpapagal," he said in a statement.

(Teachers who worked extended hours during the recent BSKE should be given overtime pay. They put up with the hardship, fatigue, and lack of sleep in order to ensure an orderly polls and that's why their efforts should be rewarded.)

The Makabayan solon noted that rules from the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Department of Budget and Management (DBM) do not expressly say that only employer-agencies can be required to give overtime pay.

"On the other hand, it was the Comelec (Commission on Elections) which authorized teachers to render overtime services (or at the very least, allowed/not prohibited). Plus, teachers (BEIs, poll workers) are deputized workers of the Comelec during elections," she said.

BEI stands for Board of Election Inspectors.

"The Comelec should have included the overtime pay of teachers when they proposed their budget for the BSKE because now it is the teachers who rendered services are being shortchanged," Castro pointed out.

"We will propose an investigation of this matter when session resumes next week and see if we can move for a supplemental budget for the overtime pay of teachers," she further said.