Being welcomed to a large elementary school in an urban poor community in Manila.
Wednesday, January 6
Ilian Burbano, CUPE Ontario International Solidarity Committee & Local 3393:
On January 6th, our CUPE delegation visited the ACT (Alliance of Concerned Teachers) office in Quezon City to get an overview on some of the multiple challenges facing public-sector teachers in the Philippines. ACT is one of the “Worker to Worker” initiative’s main local partners and host of our group. ACT has 13 regional chapters in the country and represents 30,000 teachers in primary, secondary schools and colleges/universities in both teaching and non-teaching positions.
Classes are overcrowded, there can be as many as 70 students per class.
ACT National Chairperson Antonio Tinio, explained that his organization—like other Filipino mass movement organizations—is active organizing on multiple fronts. In addition to campaigning for increased wages, benefits and improved working conditions for its members, ACT also advocates with local and national government authorities against cuts to public spending on education. ACT is also active in broader political struggles through coalitions like BAYAN (“New Patriotic Alliance”) in the “genuine struggle for “freedom and democracy”. This struggle includes opposing the oppressive policies of the governing regime under President Gloria Arroyo and its security forces which have involved extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, trumped-up legal charges issued against leaders/activists and detentions aimed at dismantling or weakening the capacity of mass movement organizations to organize and resist against the status quo. There is a shortage of classroom space.
In terms of concretely improving ACT members’ conditions, Brother Tinio highlighted a major campaign that was launched from 2008 to 2009 to increase teachers’ salaries. Public-sectors teachers’ salary levels in the Philippines are legislated. Upon coming into power, the Arroyo government froze the salaries of all public sector workers’ from 2001 to 2006. ACT worked with its allied elected-members in the Senate and House of Representatives to demand a $9,000 peso ($200 CND) increase per month over 3 years for teachers working in public schools (this represented a 70% increase). At the beginning of the campaign average teachers’ salaries were $12,000 peso per month. The progressive, left-wing Gabriela Women’s Party offered a bill in the House of Representatives for debate proposing the wage increase for teachers. ACT also organized several mass demonstrations/marches on the House of Representatives involving thousands of teachers. Finally, in July 2009, the final law approved involved a $6,500 peso wage increase over 4 years. This increase was not the same as the original demand, but involved a substantial gain for teachers in the context of neoliberal reforms, diminished public education funding and ongoing repression of mass movement organizations.
ACT Chairperson Tinio also highlighted the ongoing harassment, repression and violence experienced by his members. Two former ACT National Council members have been murdered in recent years. In January 2009, young school teacher Rebelyn Pitao was murdered by military agents in Davao (in the southern part of the country). ACT members, including its former National Chairperson, have been subjected to military surveillance. Recently, in the area of Tarlac (region north of Metro Manila) the Philippines Armed Forces has been conducting seminars with local teachers where they’re being told not to get involved with ACT because it is an alleged “communist” front. This is a very serious form of intimidation in a country in the midst of an armed conflict in which in the last 9 years (during the current Arroyo administration) there have been a total of 1,118 extrajudicial killings attributed primarily to the country’s security forces and which have primarily targeted social movement activists belonging to organizations like ACT.
Finally, Brother Tinio gave an overview of the impact on public education during the last 9 years of the Arroyo government. The 1987 Constitution implemented in the post Marcos dictatorship period mandated compulsory elementary education and free high school education. This year the Arroyo government imposed substantial budget cuts in education in response to the global economic crisis. The Deped’s (Department of Education) budget for capital outlay was cut by 15%. Meanwhile, further cuts have been imposed on next year’s education budget as well. He explained that reduced spending on education has been characteristic of the Arroyo administration for most of the past decade.
The result of reduced public spending and failure to address poverty more generally by the government has resulted in an unprecedented increase in the number of drop-outs and out of school children throughout the decade. In September 2009, the Department of Education acknowledged that there were 5.6 million out of school children—some 2.2 million children between the ages of 6-12 years and 3.4 million between the ages of 13-15 years. Tinio concluded that in the last decade basic public education has suffered substantial setbacks and priority as the government has instead prioritized on debt servicing and debt payment. Thirty-percent (30%) of the national budget has been used to pay interest on the country’s national debt which stands at approximately 58 million US dollars.
When one begins to understand the scope of the formidable challenges facing mass movement organizations like ACT in the Philippines—everything from politically-motivated repression and sustained neoliberal restructuring of public services like education—as a CUPE member the need for reciprocal solidarity becomes much more urgent.
