A progressive group calls to honor teachers not by romanticizing their hard work but rather by amplifying their call for an upgraded salary as well as to defend teachers’ unions.
Professor Regletto Aldrich Imbong, union president of the University of the Philippines-Cebu, stated in a press release on Thursday, October 5, 2023, that the All UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU) Cebu Chapter joins educators in the country and around the world in celebrating World Teachers’ Day.
“While the achievements and unconditional dedication of our colleagues in the education sector must be a source of celebration, let not the celebratory occasion obscure the issues that teachers, educators, academics and professors have been raising to their administrations and the government,” Imbong said.
He said there are several glaring and perennial concerns which until today have not been genuinely addressed by the government including the dismal state of education resulting from the lack of state subsidy.
“Through the years, state subsidy to Philippine education has only reached 3-3.5 percent of the country’s GDP (gross domestic product), only half of what the Unesco considers as the global standard for the education budget pegged at six percent of the country’s GDP. Worse, while state subsidy has been perennially short of what is considered as a global standard, the state has been cutting its subsidy to the sector, as evidenced by the drop from this year’s budget of 3.5 percent of the GDP to only 3.2 percent in the proposed 2024 budget,” Imbong said in the statement.
“Such budget cuts in education come at a time when other government agencies, like the notorious NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict), and officials who shamelessly request confidential funds, have been allocated with questionable state resources,” Imbong added.
Deteriorating quality
Imbong argued that the perennial neglect in the education sector has resulted in what the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) has recorded as the deteriorating quality of education.
He said that in the midst of these shortages and the education crisis, teachers, particularly those in basic education, are compelled to use their own funds to supplement the limited resources available for classroom instruction and pedagogy.
“This despite the continuing neglect of both past and present administrations to upgrade teachers’ salaries, from the existing entry rank of Salary Grade 11 (P27,000) to what the ACT Teachers’ Party-list proposed as SG 13 (P31,000). Such salary upgrades are not only justified given the soaring prices of prime commodities but also given how the salary grades of uniformed personnel have already been upgraded during the administration of Rodrigo Duterte,” Imbong added.
“The AUPAEU Cebu echoes the demands of the teachers, educators, academics and professors across the country in upgrading teachers’ salaries, increase of fringe benefits, creation of more plantilla items for the education sector, and the defense of education unions and organizations. Further, the AUPAEU believes that amidst a worsening political climate of repression and deteriorating economic crisis, educators could only alleviate themselves from crisis-stricken situations through collective and organized action,” Imbong said in the statement.
Confidential funds
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) recently came under fire for requesting the allotment of a combined P650 million in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) under the 2024 budget of the National Government when they are not supposed to be involved in intelligence-gathering or surveillance activities for national security.
The OVP was also criticized for spending its P125 million confidential funds in 2022 in just 11 days.
Following the outcry over the CIF allocation, both the House of Representatives and the Senate said they would look into reallocating the CIF of the OVP, DepEd and other civilian agencies to agencies with security mandates.