MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / May 31, 2014) – Government teachers who were demanding a salary have threatened to stage a mass leave if no action is taken by the Department of Education.
The group Alliance of Concerned Teachers said the planned mass leave is imminent to happen anytime.
“We are just giving way to the appeal of Education Secretary Armin Luistro for a dialogue and that they are supportive to our call for a salary increase for teachers and non-teaching staff. Armin’s pronouncement must be clear and documented. We are not contented with mere pronouncements. Our National Council recently approved our call for a mass leave once our demand won’t be in their budget proposal for 2015,” said Benjie Valbuena, ACT National Chairperson, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers are demanding that their basic salary be increased from P18,549 to P25,000 per month and that of the non-teaching staff to P15,000 from P9,000 per month. These proposed increases in salaries are stipulated in House Bill 245 authored by Rep. Antonio Tinio.
“Sustained and escalating mass actions will be simultaneously launched in different parts of the country for the month of June and this will be started by a protest action on June 02, 2014 – the start of classes for school year 2014-2015. NCR and Southern Tagalog will troop to Malacaǹan while Bacolod, Ozamis and Davao chapters will have their own protests actions. Aside from these, all our regional chapters will be holding a black arm-band wearing in their respective schools to symbolize our resolve for this legitimate and just demand,” Valbuena said.
“Pagod na kami sa kanilang mga palusot. May pera sa pork bakit wala para sa dagdag sahod naming mga guro na sobra-sobra sa trabaho? President Aquino as – the Pork Barrel King – alone has P1.1 trillion allocation and our demand for salary increase will only need around P3 billion in a year. Tama na ang pagpapataba nila sa sarili nilang bulsa, kami naming malilit ang bigyan pansin nila,” he added.
Valbuena said they are also challenging Luistro to campaign for the immediate passage of House Bill 245 if he is really for the welfare of governmnt teachers.
“Aside from salary increase, we call on the Department of Education and Aquino to immediately resolve the shortage of teachers, classrooms, chairs, facilities, books and other instructional materials by increasing the budgetary allocation for education. Also, we call on them to quit from engaging into cheap gimmickry and rhetoric by circumventing information just to make it appear that backlogs in the education sector has all been settled. Tama na ang papogi at panloloko, magtrabaho na lamang at tugunan ang mga kakulangan na ito,” he said.
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