THE Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Davao urged the implementation of Election Service Reform Act (Esra) to protect teachers’ rights in the Barangay and Sanguniang Kabataan elections on May 14.
Wilfredo Lacatan, vice-president of ACT Davao region, said during the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at The Annex of SM City Davao that teachers should know that their service during the election is voluntary which means the schools could not force them to be poll inspectors.
He said that honorarium of P6,000 shall be given to each Electoral Board Chairman (EBC), P5,000 for the Electoral Board Members (EBM), P4,000 for Department of Education Supervisor Officials (DESO), P2,000 for support staff, and P1,000 for their travel allowance.
He added that they should have five days minimum service credits, P200,000 medical assistance, P50,000 legal indemnification package and P500,000 death benefit.
“The job of the Electoral Board is very tedious. The election is manual, and it is hard to manage because there are 3 types of ballots. Two for the SK election for ages 15 to 17 and 18 to 30, and the (other) ballot (is) for the Barangay election,” Lacatan said.
Currently, there is a tripartite dialogue between Department of Education (Deped), ACT, and Commission on Election (Comelec) to compensate the extra work that the teachers will do on election, Lacatan added.
ACT also wants to intensify the filling up of the Consent Form as a requirement to stop schools to mandate the teachers to give their service during elections. They also want to increase the minimum service credits to seven from five days. They urged that the honorarium should be exempted from tax for it is not an income.
He added that Acts Davao region launched a hotline number for teachers’ rights violations to assure the implementation of Esra and to monitor Esra-related rights violations during the election. (Sean Belen, FSUU Intern)