The Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines picketed outside the Department of Education’s Central Office in Pasig City on Monday as they said they faced another form of “nCoV”—“No Cash on Valentine’s Day”—due to the continued delay in the release of teachers’ benefits.
These are the 2018 Performance-based Bonus, special hardship allowance, and the remaining P3,000 of the P10,000 Service Recognition Incentive.
ACT hit DepEd for its “negligence and inefficiency in administering teachers’ entitlements,” especially as the Salary Standardization 5 pay adjustment, albeit measly, faces a delay of four months.
“Amid the failure of the SSL 5 to provide due and sufficient pay hike, teachers’ economic rights continue to be assailed by this government,” lamented ACT chairperson Joselyn Martinez.
“The delay in the release of our bonuses, which supposedly recognize our hard work, and the SHA, which is essential in the duty performance of classroom teachers’ assigned to hardship posts, causes huge distress to us and our families who struggles to get by with our meager pay and rising costs of living,” she added.
ACT hit DepEd for failing to “timely” process these entitlements, and said the agency’s lack of urgency in handling such matters “reek of the government’s disregard and gross negligence of its workers.”
The teachers’ group said this adds to the agency’s offenses against teachers, which include its continued lack of support to their standing fight for livable wages.
“DepEd owes teachers big time, as we bear the brunt of their inefficiency and negligence. Every delay in their processing, every slack on their part means further struggle for us and our families. Teachers will not stand for this, DepEd and the rest of this administration must be held accountable,” declared Martinez.
The group demanded for the immediate release of the benefits and incentives that will give teachers much-needed economic relief.
ACT likewise called on DepEd to support the call of its employees for decent pay, specifically their call for the upgrading of teachers’ salary grade level from 11 to salary grade 15 and the raising of non-teaching personnel’s minimum pay to P16,000.