Senators push to increase teachers' ‘chalk allowance’ to P5K

Several senators on Wednesday pushed to increase the teachers' "chalk allowance" from P3,500 to P5,000 as blended forms of learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic are seen to entail additional expenses.

Department of Education Order 010s-2020 issued in June this year has since replaced the chalk allowance into cash allowance to teachers "intended to augment the expenses incurred/spent by teachers in the actual performance of their teaching responsibilities."

Earlier, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said teachers who will be holding their classes online for the school year 2020-2021 can use their chalk allowance to pay for their internet connection fees.

Senate Bill No. 1092 or the proposed Teaching Supplies Allowance Act aims to authorize the grant of P5,000 to each public school teacher every school year.

"Kung tutuusin po natin maliit po 'yung [dagdag na] P1,500, kung pupuwede lamang po we will follow the bill of Senator [Ralph] Recto na gawin nating P10,000 pero it will cost a lot," Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla, sponsor of the bill, said during the period of interpellation.

Recto underscored that the teachers are spending their own money to cope with the changes in the delivery of lessons sans face-to-face classes.

"Kung ang sundalo binibigyan natin ng bala pag nasa gyera, teaching supplies alowance ang bala ng mga guro natin. Moreso today during the pandemic, malaki ang gastos ng mga guro natin," he said, noting that this proposed allowance should be non-taxable.

He pointed out that the current P3,500 chalk allowance merely amounts to P16 per day for the whole school year.

"Parang additional ayuda to teachers itong gagawin natin," Revilla responded in agreement.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate committee on basic education, also agreed that teachers should be given additional allowance.

"The estimate more or less for load and data plan would cost P5,000 a month and the teachers are paying all of these right now," he said.

"The webinars, the seminars that they have to attend to, the different Zoom meetings that they have to attend to with DepEd incurred them a lot of expenses on data subscription," he added.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon also expressed support for the increase of allowance for teachers but raised concerns on the budgetary aspect of the bill.

"We have to admit that if the General Appropriations Act will not provide for the budget then this becomes an unfunded measure... It can result in frustration if the President will not include this in the national expenditure program," Drilon said.

The proponents of the bill concurred that the proposed law needs to be fine-tuned further and they look forward to the budget hearing of the Department of Education next week to get important feedback.—LDF, GMA News