Teachers’ pay
LIKE other pro-education government officials, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, since 2019, has been pushing for a legislation to raise the pay of the country’s teachers.
We share the view of Gatchalian that the situation has become so bad that Filipino teachers earn less than what their counterparts in the Southeast Asian region are receiving.
In Indonesia, for example, the monthly entry-level pay of teachers is P66,099 compared to the P25,439 entry-level salary of Filipino teachers, said Gatchalian in a statement.
“It is time to raise the salary of our teachers since they play an important role in educating our youth,” according to the highly-articulate senator from Valenzuela City.
A group of public hospital nurses had earlier lamented that thousands of government-employed nurses are getting less than P35,000 monthly pay since they are contractuals.
The monthly entry level salary for nurses in the government service is P32,097, but teachers are in an even worse situation, getting just a P25,439 entry-level pay.
But with President Marcos in Malacanang and Vice President Sara Z. Duterte as secretary of the Department of Education, our public school teachers expect better days ahead.
“Naniniwala tayo na gagawa ng paraan sina Pangulong Marcos at VP Duterte para naman gumanda-ganda ang buhay ng ating mga guro,” said a retired public school teacher.
It is certainly saddening and disturbing that many of our teachers are forced to seek employment abroad, where a household worker gets higher pay than a teacher in the country.
A teacher in the Philippines may not be able to send his/her children to college. “Sa liit ng kanyang sahod ay hindi niya mapag-aaral sa kolehiyo ang kanyang mga anak,” said a farmer.
Tama nga naman.
