LuisTeodoro.com

Military “restiveness” can refer to anything in the Philippines from the soldiery’s griping about their salaries and incentives to the officer corps’ grumbling about bad governance and issuing the usual threats of a coup. Whichever’s the case, however, it’s ultimately based on the perception among officers and men that they’re not getting the pay and perks they should be getting.

It’s not anything new either, at least not since 1986, when, the morning after EDSA 1, the nation woke up to discover that all those years of Marcos-era ascendancy had given the military dangerous ideas, among them the belief that it can do a better job of governance—or can at least get the ears of officialdom much quicker than, say, teachers.

Public school teachers and other folk in the government service do complain too, and have been complaining for years. But their complaints often fall on the usual deaf ears. The reason’s clear enough: teachers don’t have bayonets, only erasers. They don’t have guns, only chalk—assuming, however, that they even have them at all, these basic instruments of pedagogy in the country of our sorrows being perennially in short supply, like books, desks, and even classrooms.

The average monthly teacher salary, after payments for the loans most teachers incur have been deducted, is at a low P5,000. If fortunate enough not to have incurred any loan—usually resorted to to make ends meet, in the first place—the teacher, after the usual tax, GSIS, charity and other deductions, on the average takes home about P8,000 out of a salary, assuming she or he’s a Teacher 1, of P9,939 per month.

That amount is an improvement over teachers’ salaries a decade ago, when it was far less. That teachers’ salaries are now at least slightly below P10,000 was the result of a long process of agitation by teachers’ groups, congressional hearings, and a detailed study by the Educational Committee of both House and Senate.

Teachers’ salaries, however, for some reason still come late as they did then. The loans plus the low salary plus its coming late force teachers, among other desperate measures, to sell underwear, food, pre-paid phone cards and whatever else, and to accept sidelines—which can mean anything from doubling as real estate agents to selling Sweepstakes tickets during weekends.

How do teachers compare to soldier in terms of salaries? A Private in the Armed Forces gets the same salary as a Teacher 1; a Private First Class the salary of a Teacher 2; a Sergeant the same salary as a Headteacher 1; a Staff Sergeant the same pay as a Headteacher 2; A Principal 1 gets the same salary as a Technical Sergeant; a Principal 2 the same as a Master Sergeant’s.

A Senior Master Sergeant in the AFP receives the same salary as a District Supervisor 1; and a Chief Master Sergeant the same as a District Supervisor 2. But a PMA cadet receives a salary higher than a District Supervisor 2—the equivalent of an Associate Professor 1’s salary in the University of the Philippines (about P16,000 a month).

On the other hand an AFP officer from lieutenant to full general (Salary Grade 20 to 30) receives the equivalent of an Associate Professor 5’s to a full Professor 1’s salary in a state university. No administrator or teacher at the elementary and high school level gets a salary as high as a PMA cadet.

When confronted with these figures, expect soldiers and their officers to react with indignation. They will say that they serve the country by keeping it secure from its enemies. They risk their lives daily. They serve under the most difficult circumstances, in rain, burning sun, wind and storm. They DESERVE what they’re getting, and more, for what they do.

It is of course true that it’s tough to be a soldier, though some officers do have such perks as soldiers’ serving as their gardeners and janitors, and even as beasts of burden to keep their feet dry (remember that widely-circulated photo of that AFP general who was carried from a ship to the beach piggy back by a soldier?), while they sit in air- conditioned offices or in their homes at the Corinthian or Greenhills thinking up ways of diverting supplies to their private warehouses and intelligence funds to their bank accounts.

Not all soldiers and officers have such rank privileges. Soldiers do get hazard pay, however, plus such other perks teachers do not have as “long pay,” which is a 15% increase in base pay after five years’ service; a clothing allowance bigger than that for teachers; and a laundry allowance. In addition, the government has provided housing for soldiers, and very recently received the signal privilege of having their very own grievance mechanism created by no less than the President of the Republic. Teachers have neither.

And yet teachers are no less overworked, and in some instances as endangered, in situations that in addition they have not been trained for. They are required to serve during elections for a P400 honorarium, the idea being to safeguard the integrity of an exercise basic to democratic governance. If assigned to hazardous areas during elections they do not receive anything further for risking their lives, and must rely only on their courage to survive.

Most important of all, they are at the very core of that most basic of needs for any country to develop, education. To them is entrusted the shaping of the values, skills and knowledge of the young on whom the country’s future depends.

Critics will argue that teachers are not doing an exemplary job, if the country’s state of poverty and underdevelopment is to be any gauge. It’s not difficult to identify some of the causes. Functional literacy and numeracy are steadily declining, and the school system annually graduates people unprepared for college work. The decay in knowledge of the country’s history, its political system, its economy and culture is visible among the general population, as is the most elementary knowledge of other countries. For these teachers get the blame for not teaching well, and for being unprepared to teach such critical subjects as math and science.

On the other hand, the country and its citizens have never been as insecure. The levels of lawlessness, crime and banditry have escalated, many suspect because of police and military collusion if not outright and direct involvement in the drug trade, in kidnapping, murder for hire, and, at the community level, the protection of gambling and prostitution. Human rights violations are approaching record highs, most of them attributed to the police and the military.

The defense of the country from its enemies is as crucial as its development. But there are definite signs of failure among the two sectors that are arguably the most pivotal in providing the conditions for either.

Like past governments which have responded to the military’s complaints in fear of coup attempts, the Arroyo government is responding to the rumors of military restiveness by promising the country’s soldiery and officer corps more housing programs, higher salaries and serious attention to their grievances.

On the other hand, the grievances of teachers and other public employees have not had the privilege of provoking the same response, their major disadvantage being their inability to threaten governments with destabilization. And yet their grievances are equally valid, and deserving of the same government attention. Provided, of course, that this government is as interested in the country’s future as it is in its own survival.

(Today/abs-cbnNEWS.com, July 22, 2003)

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