Senate approves bill hiking public school teachers’ ‘chalk allowance’

The Senate of the Philippines on Monday unanimously approved a measure seeking to institutionalize and increase the teaching allowance for public school teachers or commonly known as “chalk allowance.”

Under the measure, the teaching allowance will be gradually increased from the current P5,000 to P7,500 for school year 2023–2024 and to P10,000 for school year 2024-2025 onwards.

The additional benefits will be exempted from taxation.

In a statement, Senator Ramong “Bong” Revilla Jr., principal author and sponsor of the bill, urged his colleagues at the House of Representatives to prioritize the passage of a similar bill.

“This was already passed by the Senate during the 17th and 18th Congresses. It is not for me or for all of you. This is for our hard-working teachers, the shapers of our nation, who have dedicated their lives to nurture our children,” said Revilla.

In his sponsorship speech last week, Revilla lamented that public school teachers are forced to shell out money from their own pockets to purchase supplies for their classes as the current allowance only provides P5,000 per year or just P24 a day.

"The current cash allowance already includes a P500 allocation for medical examination. If we deduct that from the purchase of teaching materials and equipment, it will drop to P22 pesos only per day. A box of chalk costs P68, a ream of bond paper costs P120, not including the internet load,” the lawmaker said.

He stressed that the additional allowance for public school teachers would only need another P2 billion when the amount reaches P7,5000 and P4.5 billion when it reaches P10,000 in 2025.

Currently, Revilla said the funding for public school teachers’ allowance is set at P4.8 billion.

“This is less than one percent of the total budget of the Department of Education in this year of the trillion-peso budget, it is too little for us to deny," he said.

Senate Bill 1964 or the proposed "Kabalikat ng Pagtuturo Act" was passed with 22 affirmative votes, zero negative votes, and zero abstention. —VAL, GMA Integrated News