During the PDP-Laban campaign rally held in Plaza Independencia, Cebu City, President Rodrigo Duterte promised teachers that he would double their salary just like what he did to the police and other uniformed personnel. The only catch is that teachers have to ‘wait a little longer’ because the budget is not yet sufficient to bankroll the massive increases.
The President has long been promising to increase the wages of public school teachers; though this promise has not been fulfilled yet due to budget constraints. Yet he had repeatedly told teachers that he is not lying about the planned increase, especially because his mother had been a teacher.
Photo credit: Educo PH
“For the teachers, just wait a little because we don’t have the budget for that yet. But your salaries will be doubled just like with the police. My mother was a teacher too,” he said during the campaign rally in Cebu City back in February 2019.
Prioritizing the Uniformed Personnel?
When the salaries of the police and uniformed personnel were increased to twice the old rate, a lot of sectors got angry because they felt that the President was ‘paying’ them to ensure they won’t support an uprising against him.
A lot of sectors believed they deserved to be prioritized, particularly the teachers and those in the medical field like doctors and nurses.
With the teachers being the ones responsible for the education of all the students in the Philippines who would later become soldiers, doctors, policemen, engineers, and other professionals, teachers definitely deserve to be treated with much respect – and should have salaries to match those received by the professionals they once taught!
Photo credit: Asia Nikkei
But Duterte explained that he prioritized the police and uniformed personnel since they are the frontliners in the country’s national security. He assured teachers they are next in line. The President said he already talked with Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno about the proposed salary adjustment for public school teachers.
Would the public school teachers’ salaries be doubled in 2020? Let’s wait and see…
Credits: Wikimedia Commons
Teaching is a noble profession, they go to war everyday in their soul, not to be corrupted by the effect of money. They stand alone in the room against 50 plus personality in one section , they teach 500 to 600 student five days a week, not adding to the seminars and travelling away from their family, yet always trusting to the owner of us all , the creator God who is higher than the promise of a President of a six year age office , after that is bye bye promise. Some of them serve more than 20 years, they endure it not because of a President promise, but because they are a group of people want to make a difference in their nation. They look not to the superficial things they call money, but to help. They believe in the bible written in Galatians 6:7 God cannot be mocked you will reap what you have sown. The devil want to destroy a nation but God want to heal a nation and teachers is the number one in God list of his army. Mr. Duterte you want your war on drugs to succeed beyond your term, take good care of the nations teachers especially the spiritual teacher like me.
Wow. Such powerful words Sir Joseph. We totally agree with your comment. Teachers mold the nation’s future leaders and therefore should be taken good care of the government as they carry a huge role in developing the learners into becoming the best version of themselves.
I agree with all the points you said about how important the role of the teachers in our society. Everyone plays a special role and deserves to have a raise to give our family a better life. We just need to to wait for that time to happen because if you think about it, for the past years and administration this is the first time something like this happened. I believe being teacher is a call so for now focus on that call to preserve and mold our new generations as productive members of our society.
I agree Sir Jepoe. Politics aside, this could be a great achievement for this administration if the salary of the teachers who are longing for an increase, will be doubled.
We will just wait til twas fulfilled. We could do nothing about it, but to patiently wait. Hopefully SOON!
You’re right Ma’am Lexi. Let’s just hope but do not set high expectations.
What about the government nurses po?
Do we have to wait til they get tired of waiting for their salary increase and leave and look for greener pastures,po?
We are one with you Ma’am Emie. Nurses deserve an increase, too.
Simple…
Pagtrabahoan niyo sweldo nyo
Wag puro chil sa office
Pero please paki tanggal na nang lesson plan..
Please… because it’s useless.
Imbis na magprepare kami para sa lesson..
Nagpi-prepare kami sa lesson plan.
**** ***.
Lesson plan not Lesson-plan plan
At isa pa,
We graduated this profession then we are expected to be equipped with knowledge and skill..
No need na ang lesson plan
Salamat Tatay Digong…asahan namin yan
I agree that teachers salary should be increased or doubled they already have 19K minimum monthly salary … But how about us as engineers? Our license turns to ashes as we are forced to work in a private company and having minimum wage, I have 8,000 monthly salary for 6 months and 10,000 now for another 6 months. Can you see the difference? I hope that there should be a job this government can give us, because most of the companies are hiring applicants based in their looks, yes there is always a discrimination. It is never about attitude and knowledge, it’s about backer system. Teaching will be easy, but an engineer makes life easy for others, not for himself/herself.
Teaching is not dat easy as what u r thinking sir.don’t compare teaching from ur profession bec. all profession would not be possible without us! You are the product of our efforts! And we teachers who really made life easy for others ! ✌just saying…
Please take a look also on the salary rates of medical & non medical practitioners of govt hospitals who are more overworked as well, i think more than anyone else. In the salary standardization too, salary rates of govt workers occupying administrative (human resource, accounting, budgeting, logistics & general services) positions are very much behind than those of the technical positions, the gap is very wide, when they deserve decent & comfortable life too.
Good point Ma’am Susan. I have friends who are nurses and they are also longing for a better salary.
👍👍👍
Laban lang po! what is due will be due!
Well said Sir Faust.
How about me .I am getting old in this teaching profession. I also want to experince having that doubled salary from our Loving Pres.RRDuterte.
I can I still take it until I retire on 2021,?
Godspeed Ma’am Macrine. Hopefully it will materialize before you leave the profession.
We will pray for Philippine ‘s economy to grow so that it will have budget for salary increases of all govt. workers.
Prayer is indeed powerful Sir Romel.
Turned 60 last february, my 35th year of teaching. Planning to retire this year. Sayang hindi na yata ako maaambunan ng salary increase…So sad…..
I really enjoyed while going through your article. It’s the ground reality even here in Nepal; most specifically, the institutionalized school teachers are paid less than that of community school teachers. As a result, the teachers are found to be stressed, burnt out, dissatisfied and in turn quitting teaching.
Let’s claim it! Thank you Mr. President.
Lord, please help our country.
lesson planning has always been a back bone in our teaching… ang dapat tanggalin ay ung RPMS/IPCRF at ung mga principals at head teachers na pinapasa lang trabaho nila sa mga pobreng teachers… RPMS/IPCRF at mga principals/head teachers na tamad ang mga tunay na nagpapahirap sa trabaho ng mga guro…
Sorry pero sa akin, lesson plan is your tool. Although hindi natin nasusunod ito, pero kung nag sisimula ka palang. malaking tulong din naman ito. Mahirap nga lang kasi medyo mahaba ang lesson plan lalo pa kapag detailed. Siguro pweding e modify ang lesson plan, yung tipong hindi na ganun ka hussle. Teacher din ako at isa ako sa mga gurong nag rereklamo din actually sa lesson plan. hahaha! sa dami ng trabaho halos wala ka ng oras sa pamilya. Take note. when you are working as a public school teacher, kapag hindi na pumapasok ang studyante, need to home visit para pabalikin sa skul. Kung kailangan bigyan ng pamasahe para makapunta sa skul gawin mo. Kapag bagsak o hindi natututo sa clase, kailangan e remediation at e papasa (parang niloko mo lang sarili mo kasi ikaw ang nagbagsak tapos ikaw din magpapasa). Kapag mag opening ng klase, kailangan mo gumastos para ayusin ang classroom (in your own pocket – mula materials hanggang pagkain ng mga tutulong.)TEACHERS FACTOR daw kasi. hahaha! We chose to be a teacher not only because of the salary but because of our passion to teach and transmit the things we learn to the future generations. 🙂
I think what our government needs to do is bridge the salary gap between Teacher3 and Master Teacher I. There is more or less a 15k- difference in their salary, when they have equal amount of work, but please do not allow the “creation of Teacher 4 to 7 position” proposal because it is difficult to be ranked. I am waiting for my T2 appointment since last year, but until now it hasn’t come. It’s ok to retain the lesson plan, but I hope that additional burden of paperwork like SBM would be removed from the teachers as these papers take away precious time from the pupils. We also want to enjoy our weekends with our family. Aside from teaching and monitoring their performance, we also make reports for pupils’ nutritional statuses, we have to weigh them and measure their heights, we prepare their health cards, we do remediation, we train them for academic and sports contest and these additional paperwork( SBM) do not really help improve the quality of education. They are just files and folders of reports which sometimes the teachers know nothing about. We boast of the core value ‘makakalikasan’ but we continue to use tons of papers. If it’s for the pupils’ records, fine with me.. but for these files from SBM?
We are also tasked to make big books and self-learning kits.. but these are ok because they are for the pupils, but those files in SBM.. really? To be honest, some of the contents of the files weren’t even explained to us. They just provide checklist of files to complete and some of them, we don’t know where to get from. I was wondering if all divisions require their teachers to work on this SBM coz one of my friends in another province said that they don’t.
Both of my parents are teachers. Are they hardworking? Yes. Are they promoted? Yes. Yumaman ba kami? Hindi. Nakapag-aral ba ako sa kursong gusto ko? Hindi. Maayos at maganda ba ang bahay namin? Hindi. Na provide ba nila lahat ng kailangan namin sa pag-aaral? Hindi. Nakapagbili ba kami ng groceries buwan-buwan? Hindi. May sariling lupa ba kami? Hindi, skwater parin. Everyday I would see my parents wake up early and skip breakfast just to get to school on time. Every night I would see them stay up late just to finish the lesson plans required by the DepEd. Sinasakripisyo na nila ang kanilang kalusugan. Halos lahat ng sweldo nila napupunta para sa classrooms nila upang maayos ang kanilang results kapag nag inspection ang DepEd at DOH. Pati ako nagtu-tutor na para hindi na ako manghingi ng allowamce sa kanila while I was in college. Hindi na ako kumibo kahit hindi ko nakuha ang course na gusto ko, dahil hindi kami maka afford na pumunta sa mas mabuting paaralan. Na experience ko na din na sinabihan ako, “Teachers ang parents mo pero bakit di ka makapagbayad ng ganito, ng ganyan? Driver lang nga papa ko pero kaya namin.” Nakakahiya. My parents deserve better. They deserve a better salary, a better house, better food, etc., dahil andami nilang sinasakripisyo.
Ptp po admin of this page, First of all, i believe that teacher can teach well if they will be provided with enough teaching materials. Second, teachers are sure they are all human beings not a robot, but why they are very pre-occupied with some extra works other than classroom instructions and they got pressured of it?and these might cause untimely illnesses due to their stressful works and activities. Third, the double folds of salary of teacher is highly appreciated because we teachers needs it, because we have childrens also to be fed and sending them to school is not easy. Fourth, may I suggest to the DepEd officials, that if can be, Re-examine and change the educational systems that is applicable and sustainable, not just give teachers and overload of works that is not related to their specified tasks. Thank you po!