BICOL Saro Partylist Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan has proposed a measure that would provide each day care worker in government-sponsored centers a teaching supplies allowance of P5,000 per schoolyear and continuing skills training.

Yamsuan said his proposed measure as outlined under House Bill (HB) 10224 recognizes the indispensable role that these workers play in helping Filipino children have the best possible start in life through early learning experiences and activities that promote their social and emotional development.

“Workers in government day care centers (DCCs) and child development centers (CDCs) serve dual roles of being second parents and educators to children in their formative years. They encourage kids to learn and be creative, teach them how to interact with others, and even help with their mealtimes and nap times. Unfortunately, they have to make do with low pay and lack of financial support for the expenses they need to carry out these immense responsibilities,” Yamsuan said.

Barangay day care workers receive P500 a month from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), while local government units (LGUs) provide them with a monthly honoraria of at least P1,000.

Yamsuan said that during a meeting with day care workers in his home city of Parañaque last month, he found out that among their immediate concerns was their ever-increasing out-of-pocket expenses for learning materials and teaching supplies.

“To be effective teachers, day care workers already coping with low wages often shoulder the expenses for the teaching aids they use and hand out to kids under their care. Our measure aims to address this shortcoming by providing each day care worker in government-sponsored centers with a P5,000 teaching supplies allowance per school year,” Yamsuan said.

HB 10224 or the proposed Care for Child Development and Day Care Workers Act also provides for a system of continuing skills training and knowledge enhancement programs for day care workers to ensure that children in CDCs and DCCs receive quality care and education.

The program shall be implemented by the DSWD and the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Council in coordination with the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

The bill also calls for the establishment and maintenance of a unified and regularly updated database of all government-sponsored CDCs and DCCs and their respective workers by the ECCD Council in partnership with LGUs.

Under Republic Act 6972, the monthly allowance that shall be given to workers in accredited barangay day care centers is only P500 a month, which Yamsuan is “obviously not enough for their daily needs.”

Local government units (LGUs) provide a P1,000 monthly honorarium for some 14,725 day care workers, while non-permanent day care workers get P5,000 a month, according to the latest available data from the DSWD, Yamsuan said.

DSWD data also show that nearly 9 out of 10 day care workers hold non-permanent and even voluntary positions.

“These conditions place our child development and daycare workers at a disadvantaged position, affecting their morale and ultimately diminishing the quality of care they provide to our children,” Yamsuan pointed out.

The amount necessary to fund the benefits of daycare workers shall be charged from the Special Education Fund and the National Tax Allotment (NTA) of the LGUs concerned, which have significantly increased over the years following the Supreme Court ruling on the Mandanas-Garcia case, Yamsuan said.

Yamsuan was referring to the High Court’s final ruling in 2019 which determined that the just share of LGUs from the collections of national taxes should not be based solely on national internal revenue taxes but “on all national taxes.” The decision increased the Internal Revenue Allotment, now called the NTA, of LGUs by at least 38 percent based on 2022 data.