World Teachers Day on Oct. 5 brought the usual tributes. But teacher organizations say respect is better measured in salaries, working hours, staffing, and whether rights written into law 60 years ago are actually felt in schools.

“You give more than you receive,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told thousands of teachers gathered at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on World Teachers Day. It was meant as praise; it also sounded like a diagnosis. 

A day earlier, teachers and education workers from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) assembled near Malacañang carrying a stark message: Raise the entry-level salary of public school teachers to ₱50,000, increase the Personnel Economic Relief Allowance (Pera) from ₱2,000 to ₱5,000, and raise public spending on education to 6% of gross domestic product. 

Sixteen teachers and students were injured when police dispersed the mass action, ACT reported. The Philippine National Police later defended its response, saying it respected the right to demonstrate but that public assemblies had to comply with laws and regulations. 

That collision between the language of sacrifice and the material demands of those doing the sacrificing has long plagued Filipino teachers. 

On World Teachers Day, Mr. Marcos called teaching a vocation and thanked educators for their time, patience and knowledge. He also cited government measures: a larger education budget, a stronger nonteaching workforce, less paperwork, expanded career progression, and teaching and medical allowances, among other benefits. 

Teacher organizations are not saying these measures are nonexistent. Their argument is more difficult: whether the improvements are large and fast enough to change a teacher’s life. 

Praise and the payslip 

At present, an entry-level Teacher I, Salary Grade 11, earns a basic monthly salary of ₱31,705. Under the fourth tranche of the government salary adjustment, that is scheduled to rise to ₱33,387 in 2027, or ₱1,682 more a month.  

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) says the proposed 2027 budget also includes ₱38.78 billion for benefits, including Pera, special hardship allowances, teaching-overload honorariums, and medical allowances. The ₱10,000 annual teaching allowance will continue, while another ₱12.09 billion is proposed for expanded career progression for about 135,000 teachers.  

Those numbers are not trivial. Neither are the numbers teacher groups put beside them. 

ACT wants ₱50,000 as the entry-level salary. The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) is pressing for a ₱15,000 across-the-board increase. The proposals differ, but both reject the idea that incremental adjustments have closed the gap between teachers’ responsibilities and the pay they take home.  

That debate has sharpened as prices climb. The Philippine Statistics Authority reported on Oct. 6 that headline inflation accelerated to 7.2% in September from 6.1% in August. Food and nonalcoholic beverages rose 6.7% year on year; housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 8.4%; and transport 14.6%.  

For senior high school teacher Trysia Mae Ocampo, the financial strain extends beyond household expenses to the classroom itself. “Para sa akin, hindi talaga sapat ‘yung sahod na natatanggap natin monthly,” she says. 

Although her school provides basic teaching supplies, Ocampo says teachers sometimes have to finance additional classroom materials and activities themselves: “As a teacher, hindi mo talaga maiiwasan na maglabas ng sariling pera mo para sa pangangailangan mo sa pagtuturo, lalo na kung kulang din ‘yung mga materials na binibigay sa amin.” 

Public school teacher Joani N. Penoy describes a similar financial reality. Her monthly take-home salary covers essential expenses, including rent, electricity and groceries, but leaves little for personal needs or savings. “Wala rin akong savings. The moment I receive my salary, automatically mayroon ng nakalaan for it,” she says.  

Penoy also occasionally spends her own money on classroom necessities, such as markers, glue, paper clips and ink, although she acknowledges that her school provides other essential teaching supplies. 

Last Oct. 4, TDC national chair Benjo Basas said respect for teachers could not stop at words, praise, entertainment, or discounts. The coalition is seeking the ₱15,000 increase, better working conditions, full implementation of the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, and adequate school funding. 

ACT national chair Ruby Bernardo, speaking on World Teachers Day, similarly said the occasion should call attention not only to teachers’ role but also to their salaries, benefits and conditions at work. 

The refrain is familiar. In 2023, Basas told CoverStory that keeping Teacher I at Salary Grade 11 reflected the government’s “low appraisal” of teachers even as theirs was routinely described as the “noblest” profession. Three years later, the salary figure has changed; the argument about appraisal has not.

The 52-hour week 

Pay is only one part of what teachers mean when they say the work has become heavier. 

A nationally representative workload study by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) and IDinsight found that teachers work an average of 52 hours a week, including weekends. Only 45% of that time, 23.4 hours, was spent on classroom teaching. Another 17.8 hours went to ancillary work, 8.1 hours to school-related assignments, and 2.7 hours to informal and administrative work.  

The study found that 35.7% of teachers coordinated programs coming from outside their schools and 31.2% performed nonteaching assignments, such as guidance or clinic work, often out of necessity. Teachers also told researchers that hours spent working at home, overtime and on Sundays were not fully captured by the formal attendance system.  

Class size adds another layer. CoverStory reported last month that Edcom 2 expects the classroom backlog, without sufficient intervention, to reach 219,000 by 2028. Basas said some teachers already handled around 50 pupils in a room, each requiring assessment, monitoring and attention. Fewer forms do not make 50 children fewer.  

Government has acted on the workload problem. The Department of Education (DepEd) ordered administrative duties removed from teachers, rationalized workloads, and cut the number of forms regularly required of all teachers from 174 to 5. This year, 22,268 new nonteaching positions, including principals, Administrative Officer IIs and Project Development Officer Is, were approved to provide support in schools.  

But policy and lived workload are not yet the same thing. Last September, TDC said teachers continued to report spending Saturdays and Sundays writing reports, preparing instructional materials, completing school forms, answering school communications, attending trainings and coaching students.  

Ocampo’s experience reflects how teaching responsibilities extend beyond classroom instruction. As a senior high school teacher, she prepares learning modules and worksheets, checks student outputs, updates learner information and processes grades across digital systems.

She says that teachers have to go on overtime so the children’s grades would tally with the computerized grading system and their Google Classroom.

The demands frequently follow her home, reducing time for personal errands: “Hindi talaga maiwasan mag-uwi ng trabaho.” 

For Ocampo, the familiar tribute to educators also obscures this reality: “Naro-romanticize talaga ng karamihan ‘yung ‘My Teacher, My Hero,’ while teachers and educators have not received enough compensation and benefits.” 

For Penoy, responsibilities beyond teaching include cleaning the classroom and students’ bathroom, which can consume another one to two hours daily. “I work eight hours a day but if I include work that I brought home I think it’s 12 hours a day,” she says.  

Weekends are likewise spent preparing for the next school week, leaving limited time for rest and social activities. The discrepancy between public recognition and actual support is particularly apparent to Penoy during World Teachers Day. “While appreciation is meaningful, it becomes more meaningful when it is accompanied by genuine support and action,” she says.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) made essentially the same distinction on World Teachers Day. It welcomed reduced paperwork, the ₱10,000 teaching allowance, medical support, wellness leave and expanded promotion opportunities, but said persistent problems included inadequate compensation, large classes, shortages of teaching and support personnel, heavy workloads, uncompensated learning-recovery duties, and teachers paying for essential materials themselves.  

The problem, then, is no longer simply the absence of reform. It is whether reform has reached the teacher’s actual week. 

As early as 1966 

There is something striking about how current these demands sound when much of the principle behind them was written into Philippine law in 1966. 

Republic Act No. 4670, or the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, declares that the state should improve teachers’ social and economic status and their living and working conditions so that teaching could “compare favorably” with opportunities in other walks of life.  

The law limits actual classroom instruction to six hours a day, subject to exceptions and additional compensation. Work beyond normal duties is supposed to be compensated. 

More pointedly, the Magna Carta says salaries should compare favorably with those in occupations requiring similar qualifications, training and abilities, and should provide teachers and their families a reasonable standard of living. It also protects teachers’ right to organize and requires national teachers’ organizations to be consulted in policymaking.  

The provision goes directly to the question of teachers’ standing in society. The law does not ask that teaching be respected only because it is noble. It sets a more material test: whether teachers have pay, working conditions and career prospects comparable with other qualified professions. 

Sixty years later, E-Net Philippines used this year’s World Teachers Day to call for the Magna Carta’s full implementation. The civil-society education network sought adequate compensation, manageable workloads, enough teaching and nonteaching personnel, timely benefits, welfare and health support, and safe working conditions. It also called for a Magna Carta for private school teachers.  

The right to organize belongs to the same question of professional standing. The Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINK), whose membership includes education workers, raised public-sector labor concerns with the Department of Labor and Employment this year, including stronger safeguards and social dialogue. PSLINK campaigns for decent work, social protection and quality public services among government workers.  

The CHR, meanwhile, said teachers must be able to raise concerns, organize and participate in education policymaking “without intimidation or retaliation.” 

That statement acquires a harsher edge after what happened near Malacañang on Oct. 4. ACT’s count of 16 injured teachers and students remains the organization’s account, and police have defended the dispersal. But the contrast cannot be ignored: Teachers were being prepared for a national celebration of their sacrifices while some teachers seeking better conditions were being physically removed near the seat of government.  

How far does more money go? 

Government can point to real spending. 

The proposed 2027 national budget allocates ₱1.326 trillion to education across government, equivalent to 3.99% of GDP. Of this, ₱975.96 billion is proposed for DepEd. DBM says the figure effectively reaches the lower edge of the Unesco Education 2030 benchmark of 4% to 6% of GDP. ACT wants government spending brought to the other end of that range: 6%.  

There is movement on staffing, too. DepEd and DBM say ₱31.22 billion is available to fill 64,530 authorized teaching positions: 31,614 existing vacancies and 32,916 positions approved in May. A later DepEd personnel audit nevertheless showed that 25,019 older teaching positions and 8,733 of the newly created positions remained unfilled as of Sept. 4.  

That is the recurring difficulty in judging teacher welfare by announcements alone. 

An authorized position is not yet a teacher in a classroom. A budget line is not yet a benefit received. A workload order is not yet a weekend returned to a teacher. And a profession’s status is not measured by applause. 

The Magna Carta offers a less sentimental test: whether teaching provides living and working conditions that compare favorably with other careers requiring comparable preparation and skill. That is a more demanding standard than calling teachers heroes, second parents, or nation-builders because it asks what society is prepared to give them, not merely what it expects them to give. 

Mr. Marcos’ line on World Teachers Day was accurate in a way perhaps larger than intended: Teachers do give more than they receive. 

As gratitude, that is praise. As a permanent arrangement for a profession on which the public school system depends, that is the problem. CS

Hannah L. Tabunda is a journalism graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman and a contributor to CoverStory. Her interests include feature writing, multimedia journalism, and “stories that explore people, culture, and lived experiences.” She also engages in such combat sports as karate, Muay Thai and boxing, and has taken up bouldering and top-rope climbing.