Duterte: Teachers' Salary Increase Through Salary Standardization Law

In President Rodrigo Duterte’s 4th State of the Nation Address (SONA), he briefly mentioned the teachers salary increase.

“I therefore believe that this is now time for the congress to approve in your version with Salary Standardization Law”, Duterte said. “To the teachers who toil and work tirelessly to educate our young, kasali na po dito ‘yung hinihingi niyo…hindi masyadong malaki pero it will tide you over, a little bit bigger than before”, he added.

In the presidents SONA which lasted for more than an hour and a half, he finally approves the teachers salary increase through the new “Salary Standardization Law”.

He explained, “this is intended to increase the salaries of national government workers including teachers and nurses”.

Increasing the teachers salaries is one of the presidents campaign promises. To see through this promise, senators of the 18th congress filed a bill on July 1.

Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara wants public school teachers to receive at least P36 409, from their basic salary of P20 754.

Senator Nancy Binay’s version of the bill sought to bring the monthly wages of teachers and non-teaching personnel to P28 000 and P16 000, respectively. Plus, an “educational assistance” to public school teachers.

Also, Senator Francis Pangilinan filed a bill on additional compensation of about P10 000 per month.

But Education Secretary Leonor Briones said in June that government should not think of teachers alone when it comes to salary increase. That there are other government personnel to think about. She said that raising teachers’ salaries by P5,000 would require an additional P75 billion annually.

Former budget chief and now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas President Benjamin Diokno said that doubling teachers’ salaries would cost an additional P343.7 billion or 2% of the gross domestic product

“Ngayon na”, President Duterte exclaimed after telling the congress to approve the Salary Standardization Law.