Teachers’ group still wants unpaid overtime compensation from DepEd, gov’t

Teachers’ unions under the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) conducted a protest on Friday, Nov. 29, at the Department of Education (DepEd) Central Office.

The picket protest by the teachers was held to urge the government to settle their overdue compensation from school year 2020-2021, after the opening of the school year was postponed to October 2020 instead of the usual start of school year in June amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

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Over 200 teachers from the ACT-National Capital Region (NCR or Metro Manila) joined the protest, where they hung a giant demand letter for their overtime pay.

The DepEd has denied them [the teachers] of their overtime pay, working from June to early October 2020, as they were preparing for the opening of the school year amid the pandemic,

ACT Secretary-General Raymond Basilio noted.

Ngayon ay Pambansang Araw ng Paniningil sa DepEd para sa Overtime Pay ng mga Guro. Pagpupugay sa lahat ng mga gurong matapang na tumitindig para sa kanilang karapatan! Malinaw nating inirerehistro ngayong araw na hindi tayo papayag sa abuso ng pamahalaang ito sa mga guro at kawalan ng malasakit. Igigiit natin ang ganang atin at pananagutin ang mga pabaya,

he added.

He also said the teachers’ demand has a legal basis under Section 14 of the 1966 Magna Carta for Public School Teachers and the Civil Service Commission (CSC)-Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Joint Circular 1, Series of 2015.

It's a shame that the DepEd is at the forefront of the government's refusal to properly recognize and remunerate teachers' services, despite knowing fully well that their hard work and perseverance enabled delivery of education amid the pandemic and utter state abandonment and ineptitude. Paying teachers what is due them was the least they can do, but the DepEd and the Duterte administration still denied that from us,

Basilio further said.

Other chapters of ACT also participated in the National Day of Action through selfie protests, school-hopping and division-office trooping including teacher-unionists from Cebu who also held a picket protest at a regional office of the CSC in Lahug, Cebu City, to raise the same concern.

If the DepEd won’t recognize the overtime work the teachers had rendered in the past school year, the alliance emphasized that its teachers will claim their overtime credits with a synchronized one-day absence.

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