A video on Facebook (FB) is claiming that President Ferdinand Marcos will raise the pay of teachers and has a long-term plan for this. This needs context. The chief executive has not announced any immediate salary increase although he asked the Department of Education (DepEd) to look into the matter.
On Aug. 15, an FB page published the video that bore the headline:
“VIRAL: PBBM DADAGDAGAN ang SWELDO ng mga TEACHER! May LONGTERM Plan din ito! MATINDI TO! (Marcos will increase the pay of teachers! There is also a long-term plan for this! This is great!)”
The content of the video was taken directly from the official YouTube channel of RTVMalacanang and featured Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte participating in a “brigada eskwela” of a school in Manila.
Marcos has not announced a pay increase for public school teachers this year. Instead, he directed the DepEd to “procure” a “long-term outlook” study on what the salaries of teaching and non-teaching personnel should be, according to Duterte in an Aug. 14 media interview.
The VP and concurrent DepEd secretary said her office is still waiting for the results of the study which was designed to not only look at the annual pay increases but also how they will be affected by projected inflation and other economic indicators in the coming years.
Under the Salary Standardization Act of 2019, government employees, including teachers, were given pay increases from 2020 to 2023. However, there are no allocations for additional pay for these workers in the 2024 budget.
This video emerged a day after Marcos and Duterte inspected classrooms and observed activities carried out by a school in preparation for the opening of classes in public schools on Aug. 29.
FB page Balitam Pinas (created on Jan. 12, 2019) published the video, garnering over 3,200 reactions, 320 comments, 630 shares and 135,000 views.
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