Govt owes P572m in back pay to teachers

THE GOVERNMENT withheld P571.89 million from 19,063 kindergarten teachers who remain unpaid since June, ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said Thursday.

Tinio, an ally of President Benigno Aquino III, said the government was getting away with not paying because the Education Department hired the teachers as contractual or “volunteer” employees and paid them only P3,000 to P6,000 a month.

“The Aquino administration must repudiate its de facto reliance on the large-scale contractualization of teachers for its Universal Kindergarten Program,” Tinio said.

“Regularization of their employment status is the only way to address their exploitative working conditions, including the recurring problem of delayed payments.”

The government must stop exploiting teachers, Tinio said. Some kindergarten teachers were not being paid for their services during the summer, he said.

“We received the same complaints from the [department’s] kindergarten teachers last school year,” Tinio said.

“This will be a recurring problem for as long as they are not regular employees and aren’t part of the [Education Department’s] regular payroll.

Tinio said kindergarten teachers were also not entitled to social security and health benefits and security of tenure.

He said he had submitted an amendment to the 2012 General Appropriations Bill that would require the Education Department to give priority to hiring of qualified contractual or volunteer teachers, whether employed by the department or by local government units.

He said he had also proposed an additional allocation of P8.5 billion to the Education Departments’ budget for the hiring of 38,593 new teachers. Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today