Additional support and compensation for educators pushed

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano pushes a bill that seeks to give additional support and compensation benefits to the public school teachers in the country.

In his bill, each teacher shall receive an additional benefit in the amount of Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) per month and teaching supplies allowance amounting to P5,000 per month as well.

He also proposes to given medicare care allowance which equates to P5,000 per month for the teachers' well-being.

"Teaching is one of the noblest professions' once said by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. This was validated by a 1998 World Bank study, which pointed out that the role of teachers is considered as the "single most influential factor" behind a student's performance. This recognition is not new. More than four decades ago, out public school teachers rejoined in the enactment of RA 4670, or the Magna Carte for Public School Teachers, which aimed to promote and improve the social and economic status of public school teachers, their living and working conditions, their terms of employment and career prospects in order that they may compare favorably with existing opportunities in other walks of life, attract and retain in the teaching profession more people with the proper qualifications, it being recognized that advancement in education depends on a large factor in the economic growth of the nation.

No less than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte himself also espouses this view and included it in his priority legislative measures in his recent State of the Nation Address, given that his mother was also a teacher. On a personal note, our family also hails from the rich tradition of educators. Lola Jualian, a public school teacher at the Pateros Elementary School; to Former Senator Rene Compañero, a professor of Law at the Lyceum of the Philippines; his wife Sandy, a pre-school teacher and a school directress; and former Congressman now Mayor Lino, who taught at the University of the Philippines. Teachers play the role of our second parents. We should honor them. Each and every one of us owes a big part of who we are because of their sacrifices.

This bill is in response to the lone-time clamor of our public school teachers for the urgently needed support, considering that their present compensation package places them in a peculiar situation of being just within the present poverty threshold. This also seeks to remedy the current problems of teachers relative to the provisions of the Magna Carta, which since enactment in 1966 continues to be unimplemented and to prevent exodus of the members of the teaching profession who are seeking jobs in other countries, the type of brain drain that this country cannot afford.