Cayetano reiterates call for additional benefits for teachers

In commemoration of the World Teachers’ Day on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano has renewed his call for government to institutionalize more measures aimed at providing additional compensation, benefits, and support for the country’s educators.

“The teaching profession is crucial in creating a society geared towards progress. Yet it is one of the most taken for granted careers in the country in terms of compensation " - Senator Alan Peter Caye-
tano

"As we celebrate this year’s World Teachers’ Day, I urge my colleagues to take time not only to thank our teachers for their invaluable contribution to the society, but to also work towards giving them the support that they deserve,” said Cayetano, who co-authored and paved a way for the third-reading passage of Senate Bill 510 seeking to declare October 5 as National Teachers’ Day in the Philippines.

To make the support palpable, the senator pushed anew for the passage of his Senate Bill 94, which, if signed into law, will give public school teachers additional compensation of P9,000 in the form of allowances and other remuneration from local school board funds, P1,000 worth of annual medical allowance, and a bonus to answer for the unpaid benefits granted by the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers.

“The teaching profession is crucial in creating a society geared towards progress. Yet, it is one of the most taken for granted careers in the country in terms of compensation,” Cayetano lamented, noting that the entry level for public school teachers is only Salary Grade (SG) 11 or about P18,549 per month.

Cayetano is set to file another bill that will provide scholarship grants for public school teachers’ dependents and for educators planning to pursue further studies.

The senator said teachers occupy a high place in his legislative agenda as he had been surrounded by family members who, at one point in their lives, were educators.

His grandmother, Juliana Cabrera Luna, was a public school teacher at the Pateros Elementary School. His mother Sandra was a pre-school directress, while his father, the late Senator Rene “Compañero” Cayetano, was a law professor at the Lyceum of the Philippines. His brother, Taguig Rep. Lino Cayetano also taught at the UP College of Mass Communications. ##