A LAWMAKER on Thursday slammed Education Secretary Leonor Briones for defending the removal of allowances granted by local governments to DepEd-hired teachers from the Special Education Fund and for saying that public school teachers are not underpaid.
ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro was referring to the statement of Briones that “public school teachers are well-compensated which is far from the old notion that teachers are underpaid.”
Any additional compensation should thus come only from “legitimate sources” such as the General Fund and not the SEF, the lady lawmaker said, quoting Briones.
The General Fund is the local government unit’s annual budget from the national government while the SEF is the additional one percent levy on real properties within the LGU, Castro explained.
Briones cited Joint Circular 1, series of 2017 which the DepEd and the Departments of Budget and Management and Interior and Local Government issued on Jan. 17. It no longer lists local allowances for DepEd-hired teachers among the expenses chargeable to the SEF. They may, however, be granted out of the General Fund (GF), Castro noted, quoting Briones.
But Castro said that the new circular reversed the rules which LGUs have been following for nearly 20 years, enabling them to grant allowances from the SEF to DepEd-hired teachers.
Castro maintained that these rules rightly classified local allowances as teachers’ expenses for “operation and maintenance of public schools” under Section 272 of Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, which lists the allowable expenses chargeable to the SEF.
“We remind the Secretary that SEF has long been a legitimate source of teachers’ local allowances pursuant to law and the guidelines implementing this law,” said Castro, citing Joint Circular 1, series of 1998 of the three agencies.
“Their new circular slashed the benefits that teachers have long been receiving, and denied to DepEd-hired teachers the funds they need for instructional materials and supplies, even furniture, for use in their classrooms and schools.”
Castro stressed “it is extremely disappointing for the education secretary herself to be clueless on the real plight of public school teachers.”
“How could she miss the fact that, due to the inadequate funds for education from the annual national budgets, teachers are forced to shell out from their own pockets for expenses in the classroom and school?” she asked.
Castro urged the DepEd, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and Department of Budget and Management to revoke their new joint circular considering the demands of teachers and a pending legislation seeking to expressly state in the LGC local allowances to DepEd-hired teachers as allowable SEF expenses.