ACT DEMANDS FOR RE-ACCREDITATION!

ALLIANCE OF CONCERNED TEACHERS
2/F Napoleon Pornasdoro Bldg., Mines St. cor. Dipolog St. , Bgy. VASRA, Quezon City , Philippines
Telefax 453-9116 Mobile 0920-9220817 Email act_philippines@ yahoo.com Website www.actphils. com
Member, Education International

November 25, 2009
NEWS RELEASE
Reference: Antonio L. Tinio (0920-9220817)
ACT Chairperson

Teachers urge COMELEC to accredit ACT as partylist

Militant teachers today trooped to the Commission on Elections main office in Manila to urge the poll body to allow a teachers’ partylist group to run in the May 2010 elections.
Around 100 teachers held a brief demonstration and called on the COMELEC to accredit ACT Teachers Partylist. Last Friday, the COMELEC First Division headed by Commissioner Rene Sarmiento issued an 8-page resolution denying the petition for accreditation of ACT Teachers Partylist, claiming that it made untruthful statements in its petition regarding the extent of its membership. According to the COMELEC, its field offices reported that ACT Teachers Partylist does not exist in the majority of regions in the country.
ACT Teachers Partylist officials led by its president Antonio Tinio and secretary-general April Valentin Montes, together with their legal counsel Atty. Alnie G. Foja, then proceeded to the COMELEC’s Commission Secretariat to file a Motion for Reconsideration of their petition.
“The First Division’s decision is most unfortunate,” said Tinio. “There are no untruthful statements in our petition. How could they conclude that we don’t have a nationwide constituency? It appears that they simply overlooked the copious lists of names and addresses of officers and members of ACT Teachers Partylist in eleven of the country’s 18 regions that we submitted together with our original petition.” Tinio added that their partlylist has regional, provincial, city, and municipal chapters in the Cordillera Administrative Region, National Capital Region, Regions 2, 3, 4-A, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 12. “For this Motion for Reconsideration, we are submitting an even more voluminous compilation of lists of chapters, officers, and members together with affidavits and other documents attesting to our organization’s existence in these regions.”
ACT Teachers Partylist has more than fulfilled all the requirements for registration demanded by the partylist law. There should be no reason for the COMELEC to deny this motion for reconsideration,” said Atty. Foja.
“It would be a grave injustice to the sector of teachers and education workers if our partylist is not allowed to in the 2010 elections,” said Montes. “The sector has been clamoring for genuine representation in Congress, something which our party can provide, grounded in the solid track record of ACT in upholding and advancing teachers’ rights.”
ACT Teachers Partylist and the Alliance of Concerned Teachers are calling on their members nationwide to hold dialogues and mass delegations in the COMELEC offices in their localities and to barrage the COMELEC national office with telephone calls, texts, faxes, and emails calling for the accreditation of ACT Teachers Partylist.
Tinio noted that a delegation trooped to the COMELEC regional office in Iloilo yesterday, and that similar actions will also take place in Bacolod , Cebu, and Davao today. “We will keep up the public pressure until our petition is granted,” said Tinio. #

NEW PARTYLIST - ACT TEACHERS

As election period is coming in we should be informed of our candidates platform and their background.Will they move for changes in the society by creating laws that would benefit the basic sectors? One of the new partylist that I read has opted to promote the teachers voice. Hereunder are the details about this partylist aspirant.

Prominent educators and educational staff led by Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera (Professor Emeritus and National Artist), Antonio Tinio (ACT Chairman), Clodualdo Cabrera (former All UP Workers Union President and currently U.P. Staff Regent) and Dr. Francis Gealogo (Faculty, Ateneo de Manila University) established the ACT Teachers Partylist in January 2008.

It pledges to serve as the real voice of the teachers – Ang Tunay na Tinig ng Teachers! It will fight for the interest and well-being of all public and private school teachers as well as all members of the educational sector.

General Platform of ACT Teachers Partylist

As the Real Voice of Teachers! (Tunay na Tinig ng Teachers!), the ACT Teachers Partylist supports and fights for three major points. First, the economic rights and welfare of teachers and educational staff; second, relevant reforms in the educational system; and third, good governance.

1. Fighting for the economic rights and welfare of teachers and educational workers: The ACT Teachers Partylist fights for the interests and demands of teachers and educational workers towards raising their wages and benefits, and the betterment of their teaching and working conditions.

· Upgrade teachers’ salaries to salary grade 15.

· Remove the Claims and Loan Interdependency Program or CLIP of GSIS, among the other unjust practices of the said institution.

· Demand transparency in the governance of fund agencies such as the GSIS, SSS, PhilHealth, Housing, among others.

· Enforce the Magna Carta for Private and Public Sectors which pushes for the • rights and betterment of teachers.

· Reserve sufficient amount of funds for the benefits of teachers and educational • staff, and regularly fulfill its disbursement.Advance the right to form unions in the educational sector.

2. Relevant reforms in the educational system: The ACT Teachers Partylist supports the development of quality but affordable education, especially for the poor, which strengthens the nationalistic aspirations of the people and the spirit of service.

· A higher educational budget – 6% of the GDP must be allocated for education to immediately fill the current shortages in operations, personnel, logistics, rooms, books, supplies, among others.

· Free and accessible elementary and high school education, and affordable college education.

· Push for the use of Filipino and the local languages, as well as the use of native pedagogy, in schools.

· Return Filipino values, history, literature and social sciences as subjects in • basic education.

3. Good governance: The ACT Teachers Partylist supports good governance, and puts the interests of the majority of Filipinos at the forefront versus that of the minority and the foreign.

· Fight anomaly and corruption in government.

· Prioritize social services such as education.

Declaration of Principles

We, members of the ACT Teachers Partylist, committed to be the true voice of the country’s teachers and aware of our special role in shaping the minds and values of our children and youth, pledge to represent, assist and defend teachers and other education workers in advancing our vocation, economic welfare and democratic rights guided by the following declaration:

· The children and youth have the right to an education that inculcates love of country, develops scientific thinking and is attuned to the needs of the majority of the people especially the marginalized and underrepresented.

· We, the teachers, have a major role in developing children and the youth into responsible, civic-minded and trustworthy members of society.

· We have a right to decent salaries, favorable working conditions and so• cial security. We should be provided with school facilities sufficient for our teaching needs and with venues and opportunities to enrich our teaching competencies.

· The dynamic participation of teachers and other education workers in working for positive changes in our society in unity with other sectors should be encouraged and strengthened.

· We need to venture out of the classroom and campus to initiate and sup• port legislative and policy measures to reform the educational system, increase the budget for education, justly compensate and provide development programs for those in the public sector.

· We pledge to unite with other sectors of Philippine society, especially the economically deprived, in the fight against foreign domination, abuse of power, graft and corruption, trampling on civil liberties and academic freedom and other obstacles to our nation’s development.

· We, especially the public school teachers, are also the guardians of suffrage. We will help ensure clean and honest elections and actively fight election fraud.

· We demand and will strive for responsible and effective governance.

Who can be members of ACT Teachers PartYList?

· teachers

· education workers

· students of education

· retired teachers

· parents of students

· other individuals who believe in the goals of ACT Teachers Partylist.

How can you join the ACT Teachers Partylist?

Please get in touch with any member of the ACT Teachers Partylist on campus or in your community.

Or get in touch with the ACT Teachers Partylist Regional Headquarters

Website: www.act-teachers.org

e-mail: actpl.smr@gmail.com or actpl2010@gmail.com

call or text: 0928-740-3976 or 0908-900-5770

What can you do?

Inform us of issues and problems that you think the ACT Teachers Partylist should address.

Give us your ideas on how we can strengthen the role of the ACT Teachers Partylist bilang Tunay na Tinig ng Teachers!

Be a member.

Invite others from your family, relatives, friends, former classmates and teachers, neighbors, co-employees and others to be members.

Attend our activities and invite others to join you.

Help solicit resources needed for the partylist’s activities and campaign.

Know more about the ACT Teachers Partylist and join an action committee.

Ang Tunay na Tinig ng Teachers!

Teachers Concern

Teachers urge COMELEC to address election service issues

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers today called on the Commission on Elections to address a number of issues faced by teachers serving in the 2010 national elections.

ACT national chairperson Antonio Tinio noted that around 400,000 teachers are going to be needed by COMELEC to serve in 80,000 precincts in next year’s polls.

“Since 1998, our demand has been to make election service optional for teachers,” said Tinio. “There is legislation currently pending in Congress to make the necessary amendments to the Omnibus Election Code, but with so few session days left it’s unlikely that the bill will be passed. Therefore, teachers will continue to be required to serve in May 2010.”

“We are therefore calling for adequate protection and compensation for teachers,” he added.

ACT is calling for 1) an increase in teachers’ compensation for election service, from the current rate of Php 1,000 per day to Php 2,000 per day; 2) provision of adequate security, insurance, and legal defense; and 3) thorough training in the new automated election system at the soonest possible time.

“Security is a major concern of teachers. Even though elections are now automated, we believe that teachers will still be subjected to harassment, intimidation and violence during the election period,” said Tinio, pointing out that two teachers were killed while serving in the 2007 national elections.

ACT also expressed concern that information on the new automated system was not being provided to teachers. “We hope that the COMELEC should at least provide teachers with a basic orientation on the new system at this stage.”

Reacting to COMELEC chairman Jose Melo’s statement that the poll body has insufficient funds for an increase in teachers’ pay, Tinio pointed out their demand could still be met. “That was also the reaction of then COMELEC chairman Benjamin Abalos in 2004, when we made a similar demand for increase in compensation. But with COMELEC and ACT working together we were able to get the Department of Budget and Management and Malacañang to release additional funds.”

ACT reiterated its call for a dialogue between COMELEC and the teachers. “We asked for a dialogue with Chairman Melo as early as September, but at the time it seems that COMELEC had other priorities.” #