A lawmaker on Monday warned of the mass dismissal of senior high school teachers if the professional licensure requirement is not suspended.
Assistant Minority Leader France Castro raised the alarm as thousands of teachers hired by both private and public schools stand to lose their jobs for their failure to pass the licensure examination for teachers given by the Professional Regulation Commission.
Teachers who are currently employed are given five years to pass the licensure examination for teachers to maintain their appointments.
But Castro, the nominee of the militant party-list group ACT Teachers, said the examinations have been postponed three times, so teachers were unable to take the licensure tests.
Meanwhile, the ways and means committee on Monday passed a substitute bill that would allow for-profit private schools to be applied taxes at the preferential tax rate of 10 percent applicable to “proprietary schools” and 1 percent from July 2020 to 2023.
The committee, chaired by Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, approved the draft substitute bill that proposes to amend the Tax Reform Act of 1997 to define the tax rates for proprietary schools.
Salceda said his committee held the meeting in response to a request from the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations of the Philippines (COCOPEA), the country’s umbrella organization for private schools.
Castro urged Congress “to urgently hear House Joint Resolution 39 calling for the suspension of the five-year requirement of licensure examination for teachers and the Department of Education to implement the statutory relief accorded by Republic Act 11469 to teachers of both private and public schools to ease their burden and to hold in status quo their employment.”
Castro said there was no guarantee that the Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers (LEPT), now set for Sept. 26, will push through because of the ongoing pandemic.
"Teachers are already restless with less than a month until the July 10 end of contract for teachers set by the Department of Education. Let us not add more teachers in the 4.4 million Filipinos already unemployed due the failed response of the Duterte administration to address the COVID-19 pandemic," Castro said.
"The Department of Education must act swiftly and urgently to address this issue of mass layoff of senior high school teachers in the public and private schools if they do not suspend the five-year requirement of licensure examination for teachers," Castro said.
She added that the DepEd already has legal basis for granting statutory relief through the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.
"We also urge Congress to urgently heed the calls of our education frontliners. Let us not wait for the end of their contracts to act. Hear House Joint Resolution 39 calling for the suspension of the five-year requirement of licensure examination for teachers," Castro said.