THE year started rather badly for teachers early this month when police intelligence officers were reported gathering a list of members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) in the nation’s schools. The ACT is a militant organization pushing not only for teachers’ interests but also for causes like human rights and land reform. The Philippine National Police (PNP) was quick to reassure the teachers as it suspended the officers who had initiated program.
Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo assured the teachers that the PNP was not moving against the nation’s teachers as President Duterte himself, he said, “loves teachers and has promised to double their salaries.” Last Friday, the President did make the announcement that teachers will indeed get pay increases this year.
The nation’s teachers have been waiting for the promised increases since President Duterte, making good on a promise he made during his campaign for the presidency in May, 2016, signed Joint Resolution 18 enacted by Congress authorizing increases in the pay of the nation’s 172,000 military men and 170,000 policemen.
Other government workers were assured they would get their own increases later, as the government simply did not have all the funds needed. The teachers alone number 600,000 all over the country; to double their salaries, the government would need to have over P300 billion, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.
The President inaugurated last Thursday the Gen. Gregorio del Pilar National High School in Bulacan where he met with the teachers and invited them to Malacañang to meet with him, Secretary of Education Leonor Briones, and DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno. “Then we can make an agreement or manifesto or choose whatever kind of document,” he said. “Kayo ang isusunod ko this year.”
The resolve on the part of government officials is there. The nation’s teachers would have gotten their salary increases at the same time as the nation’s military and policemen in January, 2018, if only the needed funds had been available. A year later, this January, 2019, the government may have come up with a way to carry out the long delayed salary increases for teachers, the molders of our youth who thus hold the future of our nation in their hands.
