AFTER President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. directed the Senate to pass the Maharlika Investment Fund bill, members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers asked senators to certify the salary increase bills as urgent.

Member teachers of the group made rounds in the Senate on Thursday and distributed to senators their own version of a letter certifying as urgent the passing into law of the salary bills.

The teachers also had a dialogue with Sen. Sonny Angara, Finance Committee chairperson, and visited other offices of senators to urge them to “invest more in workers, teachers and government employees than in the dubious wealth fund.”

“President Marcos is not representing the aspirations and best interests of the working Filipinos in his push to enact the Maharlika Wealth Fund as various sectors have already expressed their opposition to the proposal. We come here today from the grassroots to voice out what we really urgently need, and that is the immediate and substantial hike in our salaries to make us cope with the grueling economic crisis,” Ruby Bernardo, ACT National Capital Region Union president, said.

“The Senate can better prove their sincerity in addressing the crisis by commencing the deliberations on a new round of salary increases for government workers, including the teachers’ longstanding call to upgrade their salaries from the current salary grade 11 to 15,” Bernardo added.

The group said that since the bill has been approved by the Senate committee in principle to raise the salaries of workers from the private sector, it is only appropriate to pursue the passage of bills to increase the salaries of government employees.

“For the government to convince private capitalists to grant wage hikes to their workers, it is imperative that it convince itself first to increase the salaries of its own workers and set the standards for humane treatment of the working people,” Bernardo said.

“In one go, the legislative branch can effectively improve the living conditions its own workers, who comprise about 10 percent of all wage and salary earners in the country. We believe that this could bring more benefits to the country than the MIF can. For one, investing in teachers and education is a leap towards genuine national development,” Bernardo added.