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Ilocos academic groups urge pay, education budget hike

VIGAN CITY (Jan. 28) — They joined the first time around, they’re joining once again.

Inspired by the popular support they have been getting from various sectors both within and outside the university, around 150 faculty members and non-academic employees of the University of Northern Philippines (UNP) joined today’s nationally-coordinated mass action to call for higher pay and increased state subsidy for education.

The UNP Faculty Association (UNP-FA) and the UNP Non-Academic Employees’ Association (UNP-NAEA) initiated the activity, highlighted by a protest march around the main thoroughfares of this northern heritage city. The students under the leadership of the UNP Student Council (UNP-SC) joined them.

Organizers of the activity said the protest action caps several days of petition-signing and discussions among faculty members, employees and students on the basis of the growing demand for government to urgently address the concerns of the education sector. A major issue tackled in the activity is the long-standing demand for pay increase of teachers and employees.

According to Cid Javier, member of the UNP-FA board, the move is their contribution to the nationwide call for the granting of a P3000 across-the-board increase for all government employees nationwide.

“Continuing economic difficulties being experienced by lowly teachers and rank and file employees serve as concrete bases for the urgent granting of an increase in our salaries,” Javier said. Apart from calling for the re-channeling of the proposed P646 billion for this year’s debt servicing to education, Javier said they are demanding for the immediate passage into law of House Bill 1064 which will grant a P3000 increase in the monthly salary of government workers and employees.

Albert Lagrimas, president of the UNP-SC which helped initiate the activity said the move similarly attempts to project the unified call for budgetary increase as an immediate measure to address the growing problems in the education sector.

“We stand by our teachers and non-academic employees in the joint call for higher state subsidy for education,” Lagrimas said. He added that “an increase [in the budget] shall improve our capacity to acquire more facilities, and shall minimize, at the very least, the need for increase in the present cost of our tuition and other school fees.”

The leaders said they would also encourage the active support and participation of teachers and employees of other state-run schools, agencies and offices in the Ilocos area to pressure the two legislative houses to act favorably on the demand for higher education budget. # NORDIS-Ilocos

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