A federation of teachers plans to launch a series of protest activities to assert that education delivery and education workers’ welfare should come first when it comes to administration’s priorities.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines said that it is already gearing up for a series of protests and other-related activities to denounce the “deficient” service recognition incentive (SRI) for the employees of the Department of Education (DepEd) as well as the “equally inadequate and difficult to avail” P300 per month communication expense reimbursement for March to December 2020, among others.

“For months, our teachers bore the learning continuity expenses –

from module printing to cellphone load, Internet expenses, and increased electric bills,” ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio said. “They definitely don’t deserve an impossible expense reimbursement process or halved recognition of their sacrifices,” he added.

ACT Philippines is urging the national government to augment the funds for the SRI of education employees “in the spirit of equality and genuine recognition of the teachers’ sacrifices under distance learning.”

The group issued this demand following the announcement from the DepEd that the agency’s savings can only pay its employees with up to 50 to 60 percent of the mandated SRI. “It’s already delayed yet it is also lacking. Is this how the Duterte government appreciates the service of our teachers?” Basilio said.

President Duterte has authorized the grant of a uniform P10,000 SRI to all civilian and uniformed personnel starting last Dec. 21 to be sourced from each of the agency’s unspent funds through Administrative Order No. 37, Series of 2020. The DepEd, however, has yet to fulfill the order and announced Monday that its savings can only afford granting each employee with P5,000 to P6,000 SRI.

Basilio pointed out the loophole in Duterte’s AO 37 “that allows for the unequal grant of the SRI” as while it ordered for the payment of a uniform P10,000 SRI, it permits the grant of a lower amount if agency savings are insufficient. “This deviated from the president’s SRI order in 2019 when the budget agency funded 70 percent of the benefit while agencies took care of the remaining 30 percent,” he explained.

ACT noted that this is unfair to teachers. “With DepEd’s enormous workforce, inadequate funding, and humongous expenses in the shift to distance learning that even forced teachers to shell out their own money, what savings does the Duterte government expect from the agency?” Basilio asked.

Given this, Basilio urged the Duterte government to make amends to teachers who were left high and dry amid the pandemic and shift to distance learning, stressing that the first move it should do is to pay up on the benefits it owes the teachers. “Our teachers are getting demoralized and restive with the string of unfair treatment the education sector is getting from the Duterte government.”