Two party-list lawmakers on Wednesday welcomed the inclusion of the P500 annual medical examination fund for each public school teacher as mandated by the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers in the 2019 General Appropriations Bill approved by the House of Representatives.
ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio and France Castro, members of the Makabayan Bloc, said since the enactment of the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers in 1966, the provision that mandates government to provide for the annual medical examination of public school teachers remained unfunded.
“Public school teachers have to shell out from their own pockets to comply with DepEd requirements to be able to do their jobs,” Tinio said. “Though there are services offered by the PhilHealth, this clearly does not meet RA 4670’s mandate of free health care for public school teachers as PhilHealth are not free but in exchange of monthly contributions.”
Section 22 of the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, titled ‘Medical Examination and Treatment,’ provides that public school teachers should undergo free compulsory medical examination before employment and should undergo free medical check-up at least once a year. DepEd is also mandated by the same provision to provide free medical treatment and/or hospitalization.
“We consistently raised this concern during the budget deliberations since our first term 2010 through representative Tinio. We are glad that finally, this year, this provision in the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers will be funded,” Castro, for her part, said.
“We sought the commitment from the agency heads and the sponsors of the budget for funding. We are happy that the Lower House already included the line item for medical examination,” Tinio said.
Tinio said partial implementation of the provision can be started in 2019 by allocating more or less P350 million for the medical examination of all 700,000 public school teachers in one year.