Teachers’ Red October

October should have been the month for teachers as this is the time when World Teachers Day is commemorated (Oct. 5). It marks the concurrence of states, including the Philippines, to the Recommendations Concerning the Status of Teachers submitted by the International Labor Organization (ILO) to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) more than five decades ago in 1966.

In the same year, the Philippine government legislated the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, making it a state policy to uphold and protect the economic, professional, and social well-being of teachers.

The status of Filipino teachers has not substantially improved, however, despite the presence of these instruments. In fact, our mentors’ condition has further deteriorated in the past two years under the Duterte administration. Ironic because the current regime’s rise to power was bolstered by promises made to teachers and the education sector.

Teachers have not seen the fulfillment of President Duterte’s campaign promise of substantial salary increase. What teachers experienced, instead, is the erosion of the value of their salaries due to the unbridled price increases driven by the TRAIN Law and the worsening economic crisis. Never, in our history, have we been asked to eat “bukbok” rice, neither have we seen vegetable prices spiking by three to five-fold. And galunggong is being imported.

Majority of the teachers belong to the poorest 66 percent of Filipinos who earn no more than P21,000 per month. They are among the most hit by the current economic crisis.

The K-12 program, which has worsened the shortages of teachers, classrooms and facilities, and which has compounded the teachers’ workload has not been scrapped. Up to now, teachers are made to perform non-teaching duties due to lack of education support personnel.

What teachers experienced, instead, is the oppressive push to deliver outstandingly on all the tasks, including those that are beyond their job description under the Results-based Performance Management System and Philippine Professional Standard for Teachers (RPMS-PPST) policy.

Never in our history have we seen, as well, a hefty P60 billion slash in the education budget even as P55 billion was found to have been allotted as pork barrel of Duterte allies.

What we have seen, instead, is a bloody anti-drug campaign that creeps inside our schools; the systematic move to revise history and bring back to power dictators, tyrants and corrupt officials; wholesale abandonment of our sovereignty to China and the US; tyrannical moves to monopolize power and silence and quash all dissent; and a foul-mouthed president who is not fit to be seen and heard by children and, according to his own men, should not be taken seriously.

Oct. 5 is our day and we claim it as “Teachers’ Red October.” On this day, mentors across the country will mobilize in schools, city centers, and in Mendiola to press the Duterte administration to act on our demands for salary increase and better working conditions.--Alliance of Concerned Teachers