MEMBERS of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) in Cagayan de Oro City will stage a sit-down strike today, November 29, at the Magsaysay Park in Divisoria to call on the government to raise their salaries and benefits.
In a statement, ACT-Northern Mindanao challenged the government to raise the monthly salaries of teachers to P30,000, the salaries of State Universities and Colleges (SUC) professors to P31,000, and the salaries of government employees to P16,000.
They are also calling for an increase in the Personal Economic Relief Allowance (PERA),from P2,000 to P5,000, as well as in the government subsidy of medical allowance, increase of chalk allowance and the provision of CNA from General Appropriation Act (GAA).
Teachers are insisting that their current salaries are no longer enough to meet their family's basic needs because of the Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) law and the elevated inflation rate, recorded at 6.7 percent in September and October 2018.
"Secretary Briones announced during the National Teachers Day celebration at Ormoc not to expect a wage increase this 2019 and pointed out that people's tax should be raised to shoulder teachers' salary increase while military men have doubled their salary and the Build, Build, Build program," ACT said in a statement, referring to Education Secretary Leonor Briones.
"It's loud and clear, teachers are not government's priority," the group added.
ACT said teachers suffer from double deductions through absences from the basic rate and PVP (Proportional Vacation Pay).
The group also claimed that around 122,000 teachers received a notice of accounts due and demandable loans from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) due to "DepEd and GSIS negligence".
"This is due to the agency to agency loan payment including the discrepancies of records by both offices. Teachers are the ones shouldering the penalties and surcharges," it said.
ACT also said the DepEd has continued to implement neoliberal policies of overloading and multi-tasking even as they said that they were deprived of a long days vacation due to some work-related activities like Summer Reading Camp, Brigada Eskwela and Inset Trainings.
"We call to abolish all works not related to Teachers' workload. Teachers have the right to rest and leisure. We are teachers, we are not carabaos,"the group said.
"ACT leaders and members are openly vilified as terrorists; all while being deprived of basic rights and benefits. It is only right and just to face such intensifying attacks with determination and militant assertion of our calls,"the group added.