No overtime pay for teachers who extended BSKE 2023 duties
MANILA, Philippines — Teachers who extended duties while serving in the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections will not be getting overtime pay, but the education department has proposed giving them additional service credits instead.
Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairperson George Garcia said that while the commission would like to compensate the extra hours teachers rendered for the BSKE, government rules on overtime pay dictate that “only employees of an agency are entitled to claim overtime.”
“The teachers who served as electoral board members are not employees of Comelec,” Garcia said in a message to reporters.
“Moreover, the budget provided us did not provide for such an item,” the Comelec chairperson added.
In a message to reporters, Department of Education (DepEd) assistant spokesperson Francis Bringas said that teachers who had to work longer hours during the BSKE “could be given additional service credits on top of the 5 days service credits.”
All teachers working as election staff are entitled to five additional days of service credit, as stated in COMELEC Resolution No. 10933.
Service credits refer to a form of benefit given to teachers for the days they rendered work outside of their regular workdays, according to a Civil Service Commission memorandum circular No. 41 s. 1998.
These credits allow teachers to offset their absences by allowing them to take time off from work without affecting their leave balances.
Based on DepEd Order No. 53, s. 2003, the number of vacation service credits granted to a teacher every year is limited to 15 workdays.
DepEd's regional or school division offices will issue special orders for the grant of service credits, subject to submission of required documents, Bringas told Philstar.com in a message.
A day after the BSKE, teacher groups reported several delays in obtaining poll paraphernalia and lack of transportation, which forced teacher-poll workers to work overtime. Some remained waiting at canvassing sites until hours after midnight.
RELATED: Long queues, delays in canvassing force teachers to work overtime during BSKE 2023
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers and the Teacher's Dignity Coalition — two teachers’ groups that conducted separate monitoring activities for the BSKE — have called on the Comelec to provide additional compensation for teachers who served beyond their regular working hours.
Based on the incident reports received by ACT, there are at least 10 different areas or schools where teacher-poll workers experienced delays in the return of election paraphernalia and transport of ballot boxes to canvassing sites.
This year, the Comelec increased the honoraria for poll workers, with electoral chairpersons receiving P10,000 and board members receiving P9,000, up from the previous rates of P6,000 and P5,000.
Teachers’ honoraria in the elections are subject to a 20% tax deduction.
Nearly 500,000 public school teachers served as poll workers for this year’s BSKE — more than half of the over 900,000 total population of teachers at DepEd.
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