MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / July 24, 2014) – State teachers belonging to the Alliance of Concerned Teachers have joined the protest action of different organizations calling for the immediate prosecution of all those involved in the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program.
The group also demanded the resignation of Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, one of those behind the DAP which the Supreme Court ruled as illegal.
“Abad as the architect and President Aquino’s planner of the illegal Disbursement Acceleration Program got nothing to explain to the people. Everything is clear already, they created an illegal program and they robbed the people.”
“These things are clear already and that they must face all the legal implications of it. His appearance in the Senate hearing should rather focus in him addressing the people and admitting all his liabilities and to finally say goodbye from his office. He has no any credibility left to serve as a public official. He must go now,” France Castro, the group’s Secretary-General, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
She said as Aquino’s Budget Secretary, Abad designed the DAP which resulted in the systemic deduction of the meager benefits of teachers which is supposedly given to augment their small salary.
“Since Aquino assumed the presidency, we received nothing from him aside from lesser benefits and more headaches. Through the DAP, the budget for our yearly Performance Enhancement Incentive from P10,000 was cut by half. Our Productivity Incentive Bonus and allocation for substitute teachers were taken away. Because of this, whenever a teacher is on maternity or paternity leave, or sick leave, his or her teaching load was just distributed among the teachers instead of hiring a substitute teacher. It then made our already overworked status worst,” Castro said.
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