THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers asserted that its call on the Department of Education to pay the 77 days of overtime work rendered by teachers has legal and moral grounds.

The group slammed DepEd for its “underhanded bid” to backpedal on the computation of the overtime rendered by teachers in School Year 2020–2021 and its commitment to compensate teachers.

“We have on record DepEd’s statements recognizing that teachers, in fact, rendered overtime in the last school year and that the agency will work to ensure that such will be properly compensated through service credits and/or additional pay,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said.

He said that ACT had a dialogue with DepEd, the Civil Service Commission on June 24, 2021 where the issue was tackled.

“It’s a shame that despite our best efforts for civil dialogues and proper accounting of our demands, DepEd still wasn’t able to deliver on commitments they have made to teachers and other relevant stakeholders,” Basilio said.

During the dialogue, DepEd countered that it should be the period before the official start of classes or from June 1 to October 3, 2020, that should be considered as overtime, amounting to 87 days.

The group noted that RA 7797 states that the maximum number of class days shall be 220 days. However, teachers worked for 297 days or from June 1, 2020 to July 10, 2021.

ACT said that the official orders on the work days of teachers released by DepEd serve as the first set of legal basis for their claim that teachers worked an excess of 77 days in the last school year.

Basilio said that a memorandum issued by DepEd in 2018 provided for the granting of “overtime pay,” but if funds were unavailable, 1.25 hours of service credits shall be granted for every hour of overtime work.

ACT noted the need to amend the memorandum, which only covered overtime work rendered in school premises.

“Teachers have responded to the exigencies of the service amid the pandemic and worsening economic crisis,” Basilio said.