DepEd to back teachers’ salary hike if supported by 'empirical evidence'

The Department of Education (DepEd) said Wednesday that it would back teachers' requests for pay increases provided there was data to support them.

During the House Committee on Appropriations’ hearing on DepEd’s proposed 2024 budget, House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro asked Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte if she would support the salary increase for teachers and education support personnel.

Duterte redirected the question to DepEd Undersecretary Gloria Jumamil-Mercado, who explained about the study being done by the DepEd, along with the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), on how the salaries of teachers should be adjusted.

“Definitely, Your Honor, we will be supporting the proposal for increase of teachers, but it has to be empirically-based—there’s an empirical evidence for the increase of those salaries,” she said.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) has been calling for a P50,000 entry-level salary for teachers and a P33,000 salary for Salary Grade 1 employees.

Duterte earlier said the Marcos administration was looking at a possible long-term solution to address the calls for a salary increase.

Mercado said that the DepEd is working on the flow of the potential salary increase based on inflation. 

"As you know, we used to leverage our rates with the private sector. But I must say that with the diaspora of 30,000 from the private sector to our public sector, we cannot anymore make reference to the rates of the private sector," she said. 

"We have an existing study that was already initiated by the PUP, and it’s a study wherein we will be looking at the inflation rate of the country and leveraging the salary increases," she added. 

Castro welcomed this development. 

“Ang malinaw, sinusuportahan ng DepEd ang salary increase kahit na ito’y maliit o malaki. Natutuwa naman ako at nagkakaisa tayo, nagkakaisa ang Department at ang kinatawang ito para sa pagtataas ng sweldo ng ating mga guro,” she said.

(What is clear is that DepEd supports the salary increase, whether it is small or large. I am happy that we are united—the department and this representation—in raising the salaries of our teachers.)  — VBL, GMA Integrated News