CAGAYAN de Oro City 1st District Rep. Lordan Suan joined other lawmakers in pushing for measure upgrading the salary levels of public school teachers in Basic Education to salary grade 15 and teaching personnel in higher education to salary grade 17.

House Bill 6363 filed by Suan seeks to increase the minimum salary of public non-teaching personnel to P17,000.

“Education in the Philippines heavily relies on the public education system which absorbs 80 percent of the student population. Its success and failure depend on our fidelity to the mandate of the constitution and our hawk-eyed attention to the many factors affecting this sector,” Suan said in the explanatory note of the bill.

The solon said one of the problems besetting the country’s public education system is the remuneration of educators.

While the Salary Standardization Law of 2019 gave a sigh of relief for teachers, Suan said the salary level of those on entry-level position remains inadequate to address the problem of having a decent and just living wage.

“It must be emphasized that the salary increase we give to our teachers and to the labor sector, in general, had become ineffective due to inflation,” he added.

He stressed teachers deserve to be justly remunerated since their teaching tasks go beyond articulating lessons and delivering lectures.

“We must invest in the future of our children. We must invest in the future of our country. This is the kind of investment we cannot afford to forego. This is the investment with high-yield result,” he said