With the celebration of the World Teachers Day on October 5, the Alliance of Concerned Teacher-Metro Baguio joins the international community to pay tribute to all teachers for choosing the teaching profession as their contribution to society - a contribution which in our country, sadly entails having to endure an overworked, overloaded yet underpaid and neglected condition. We also take this occasion to stir their ranks especially here in Metro-Baguio to reflect on this condition, strengthen their organizations and mobilize their ranks to push government to take actions that would ease their plight.

Economically, teaching is considered as a lowly profession. Before the long list of deductions, a newly hired public school teacher receives a measly P9,939. In the Cordillera Region, most of the teachers are facing financial constraints with a net salary of only P4,000 or lower. The salary freeze under the GMA administration further made the teachers vulnerable prey to private lending institutions in order for them to be able to cope with the rising cost of living.

Similarly, teachers are also continuously being denied of their just benefits. In the last few years, the corruption and mismanagement in the GSIS resulted in the difficulty of its members to avail of sufficient benefits on time. Many of these are teachers. And just recently, while the victory of the Philippine Ports Authority employees regarding their COLA claims gave hope to teachers regarding their similar claims, it however requires their assertion. This is because the September 9 Malacanang memorandum instructing the cabinet “to facilitate the release of 1Billion pesos for the staggered payment of Back COLA due the government employees” has been taken back with the September 22 Malacanang memorandum clarifying that the first memorandum only aims
“to further study the implications of paying the back COLA”

Aside from being underpaid, most of our eligible teachers are unemployed. Statistics from
the DepEd shows that in a span of ten years from 1990 to 2000, there has not been a significant increase in the number of teachers. From 433,701 in 1991, it increased by only 71,658 to 505,359 in 2000, for a growth rate of only 1.7 percent or 7,962 newly employed teachers per year. This is despite the big number of yearly graduates in the course. According to the figures released by the Professional Regulation Commission, an average of 35, 248 passed the licensure examination test for teachers annually in that same time frame.
The thousands of graduates produced yearly are left with no choice but to practice their profession abroad. According to the DOLE figures, an average of 2,289 teachers left the country to take teaching jobs abroad from 1992 to 2002. They supply the need for teachers abroad especially in the United States. This figure has increased radically with the current administration’s campaign for overseas workers. Despite their share of difficulties such as having to endure cramped quarters, cultural isolation and homesickness, they are attracted by the light workload and a salary which is at least five to ten times the entry salary of teachers here in the country. Migrante International further added that 32,000 or twenty percent of the estimated 160,000 Filipinos working as domestics in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Middle East were teachers or at least had some background in teaching before going abroad.

With the enrollment growing by three percent yearly, teacher shortage has reached up to 51, 319 for the school year 2004-2005. This is resulting in unbearable loads for teachers. At present, the teacher to student ratio is 1:50, far higher than the UN standard which is 1:25. An extreme case here in the city has reached up to 1:92. For the region, it is still in need of 500 additional teachers to meet the standard class size of 40.
The misery suffered by the teachers and the education sector, as a whole, is obviously because of the lack of political will, through the years, to implement the constitutional provision for highest budgetary priority to education. Under the GMA administration, with more than 70% of our national budget going to debt servicing vav government policy for a 0 budget increase for 2006, we can never decisively address the issues of teachers and education workers.

With the theme “Quality Teachers for Quality Education”, ACT – Metro Baguio asserts that the GMA administration has failed to regain for the teachers the high prestige once regarded their profession. More important, it has not made teachers become more fully and meaningfully be able to contribute to quality education and to genuine national development
Before this very sorry state therefore, we must assert our demands:
P3,000 across-the board salary increase!
Genuine reforms in the GSIS!
Payment for our back COLA!
Re-channeling of debt-servicing to social services like education!
Enough of sacrificing education! Enough of Gloria!

Reference Person: Irene Nabunat
Alliance of Concerned Teachers - Metro Baguio (ACT-MB) Coordinator