ANGELES CITY- Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) chairman Benjamin Valbuena advised yesterday Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes to fi nd this early other personnel to fill in the role of public school teachers set to boycott the Oct. 28 barangay elections due to low honoraria.
In a telephone interview with Punto, Valbuena said the teachers would refuse to sign their appointments to be issued by the Comelec for them to serve in the Board of Election Tellers (BET) in the coming polls.
“For as long as they do not sign the appointment, they cannot face any sanctions,” said Valbuena whose group earlier asked the Comelec to increase the barangay polls honorarium to at least P4,000 each at par with the pay given in the last national elections.
Valbuena said that the boycott decision could still be reversed should the Comelec grant the teachers’ demand.
In a separate interview, ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio expressed support for the boycott move, noting that teachers have observed that barangay polls are more difficult to handle than other types of elections.
“Apart from being manual operations unlike the computerized national elections, barangay elections tend to be more problematic for teachers who rather frequently end up in legal tussles,” Tinio said.
Valbuena also noted that teachers are more burdened with complaints from people running for barangay posts.
Valbuena said that three teachers act as BET per precinct. He noted that while ACT has only 50,000 members nationwide, he expected the boycott move to be supported even by non-members among public school teachers.
“The teachers are simply fed up and much demoralized. The government seems stingy on them while there are huge amounts of government funds being pocketed by those involved in the pork barrel scam,” he noted. He also cited the increases in the price of basic commodities, particularly rice, as among the factors justifying the teachers’ demand.
Valbuena said that serving in the polls should not be limited to teachers, as he reiterated his call for the Comelec to recruit from other sectors should their demand for increase in honoraria be ignored.
Meanwhile, Tinio urged the government to consider his partylist’s proposal to increase the starting salary of public school teachers from P18,500 to P25,000 and use reallocated pork barrel funds for this.
Tinio noted that least P60 billion annually would be needed for such increase in the salaries of teachers.
Tinio’s partylist had earlier filed House Bill 245 seeking such increase, but said he expected it to be tackled only after the budget hearings for 2014. At the Senate, however, Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara has pushed for the doubling of the salaries of public school teachers. His Senate Bill 61 aims to upgrade the minimum salary grade (SG) level of teachers from SG 11 to 19.
If passed, the minimum salary of public school teachers will nearly double from its current monthly base pay of P18,549 to P33,859. “I have fi led this measure in the Lower House and I will continue to push for it here in the Upper House as one of our top priority bills. The salary increase, which will give relief to the 3.2 million financially burdened teachers, is long overdue.
They deserve more than what they presently get,” Angara said.
