DepEd blamed over teachers’ loan woes
“How could one manage finances if he has none?”
Teachers groups on Tuesday went ballistic on the recent pronouncement of Education Secretary Leonor Briones that they need financial literary to help them manage their finances and lower their propensity to borrow money.
In a statement, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines said that Briones has declared “war” against “lowly paid education personnel” after allowing deduction from teachers’ and employees’ Net Take Home Pay (NTHP).
ACT Philippines chairman Benjamin Valbuena said that the Department of Education (DepEd) violates its own DepEd Order No. 12, series of 2017, which states that the new threshold on NTHP of DepEd personnel shall be R4,000.
“We received a lot of reports from the National Capital Region and other regions wherein teachers and employees received only R200 to R1,900 upon withdrawal of their salaries from the Automated Teller Machines,” Valbuena said. “We demand that the ceiling of R4,000 as their Net Take Home Pay (as per General Appropriations Act of 2017) be maintained,” he added.
The concerned DepEd order, Valbuena said, was signed by Briones last March. “She should have weighed further the impact on classroom teachers the effect of the order,” he added.
Valbuena also slammed Briones for her “pro-private sector” and “uncaring stance” toward DepEd personnel when she noted that the best long-term solution to teachers’ over borrowing is teaching them financial literacy.
“They should understand that teachers and other education personnel are already in a cycle of indebtedness because of low salaries that does not even meet the standard cost of living inside the country,” Valbuena said.
“To be able to survive their families, education personnel have been victims of loan sharks and no amount of measure of so called financial literacy will address the predicament of the personnel of the education sector,” Valbuena added.
Don’t blame teachers In a separate statement, the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) also criticized Briones for “blaming” the teachers on their low take home pay after loan deductions from their salaries.
Briones, Basas said, “should ask herself, who is to blame?” He noted that “teachers are tasked to teach but those who have loans in the GSIS [Government Service Insurance System] have obligation to pay and that payment should be made by the DepEd, the agency of teachers tasked to collect money and remit the same to the GSIS [so] why should teachers be penalized?”
Basas also noted that it is the DepEd – through the respective Authorized Approving Officers (AAO) of the field offices – that allows and approves the loan applications of teachers. “The pay slip of a loan applicant will be assessed and the AAO will determine if the teacher or any borrower has the capacity to pay the loan amortization… that means if the monthly salary of a teacher will be reduced to less than the mandated NTHP, then it should not be approved,” he said.
Since the DepEd – thrpugh its RPSUs – are tasked to collect the monthly loan amortization for the GSIS and for other Private Lending Institutions (PLIs), Basas said that “they are at fault of the collections were not made.”
Basas noted that while TDC recognizes the need for financial literacy program, “how could one manage finances if he has none?”
TDC noted that more than financial literacy, the “best solution” is to fully implement the welfare provisions of the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers and provide for overtime pay, free health services, study leave with pay, cost of living allowances, higher salary grade, among other benefits.