Militant public school teachers will greet the opening of classes on Monday, June 1, with a street protest against a law that gives “token” pay hikes to educators and other governemnt employees. More than 500 teachers would march on the streets to the House of Representatives headquarters at Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City to condemn the impending passage of “Salary Standardization Law 3,” the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said Sunday. “In the past few days, the House and Senate have approved their respective versions of the new salary law for government employees,” said ACT national chairman Antonio Tinio. “Unfortunately, they are unacceptable to teachers and our colleagues in the public sector,” he added. SSL 3 seeks to grant a P6,500 pay increase to public sector employees over the next four years. ACT said this is “substantially less” than what they are asking for. “Spread out over four years, this will translate to a mere P1,625 monthly increase per year. This is substantially less than our demand for a P9,000 hike over the next three years,” said Tinio. He said the legislation approved by both houses also failed to address distortions in the government's standardized pay scale that placed teachers at a disadvantage, adding that the distortions were worsened when the Arroyo administration upgraded the salaries of military personnel in 2002. “An army private currently receives a higher total monthly compensation than a public school teacher. A cadet in the Philippine Military Academy receives the same basic pay as an associate professor in one of our state universities and colleges. The SSL 3 will perpetuate this injustice to the teaching profession,” Tinio said. “In solidarity with other public sector employees, we also condemn the failure of SSL 3 to upgrade (the salary of) government nurses to Grade 15, failure to grant a P3,000 increase for those on the lowest salary grades and failure to grant equal pay increases to local government employees,” he added. Tinio called on lawmakers to introduce amendments before the bill is sent to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for signing into law.
