THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) yesterday said it would look into the proposal of Buhay Partylist Rep. Lito Atienza to increase or double the allowance of teachers who would render service in the May 2016 polls.
“We will definitely look into increasing their honoraria,” said Comelec Chair Andres Bautista in a text message.
“Comelec recognizes the invaluable services and efforts of our teachers,” he added. However, he admitted that the “we are constrained by the budget given to us by law.”
“Nonetheless, we will look into it,” Bautista said.
Atienza proposed that public teachers rendering their services during election time be given an P8,000 honorarium instead of the Comelec’s offer of P4,000.
Atienza also opposed the bill seeking to make public teachers’ election service optional, saying he feared that the measure would be exploited by partisan politicians for their own purpose.
House Bill 5412 authored by Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list representative Antonio Tinio, if passed, seeks to make poll duties voluntary for public teachers and would allow the Comelec to appoint national government employees, private school teachers and any qualified Filipino citizen to man poll precincts.
Earlier, DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro also formally asked the Comelec to make it a choice for public school teachers if they want to be a member of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) or not as he cited the threats and acts of violence and intimidation experienced by teachers during elections.
Bautista, while saying that the poll body would look into the possibility of increasing teachers’ allowance, hinted that they most likely would heed the request of DepEd.