A group of education workers on Thursday, Feb. 23, expressed disappointment over the “obvious aversion” of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to the calls for a salary increase for teachers.

“Instead of recognizing the economic hardships of public school teachers and all rank-and-file government employees amid unabated inflation, the DBM chose to highlight its principles of private-sector benchmarking, the financial capability of the government, and ‘high cost’ of increasing teachers’ and public workers’ salaries,” said Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines Chairperson Vladimer Quetua.
ACT slammed DBM’s reply this month to the petition of 60,000 teachers for a substantial pay hike submitted to Malacanang in November 2022.
“The agency said a compensation study will be conducted this year but it seems that they have already drawn their conclusions,” Quetua added.
ACT called out the DBM for pointing out that “upgrading teachers’ salaries will result to salary distortion when the government’s salary scheme has long been distorted with the one-sided doubling of the salaries of uniformed personnel in 2018, and the exorbitant pay hikes given to high-ranking officials, especially from 2016 to 2019.”
The group said it would reiterate its demand for a salary increase and other education-related concerns during the 37th anniversary of EDSA People Power I on Feb. 25.