NEWS RELEASE
December 6, 2010

Reference: Ms. France Castro

Secretary-General, ACT

Cellphone no. 09178502124

Mr. Benjie Valbuena

Vice Chairperson, ACT

Cellphone no. 09182399222

Teachers support Morong 43’s hunger strike, affirms its call for their immediate and unconditional release

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) supports the on-going hunger strike of political detainees led by the 43 health workers who were illegally arrested by the AFP last February 6, 2010 in Morong, Rizal.

ACT Secretary General France L. Castro condemns the Aquino administration’s inaction despite the overwhelming appeal of various sectors including the international community for the immediate and unconditional release of the 43 health workers.

“The President himself has admitted that the health workers’ arrest was ‘defective’, and yet he does not perform due measures to rectify such kind of illegal imprisonment,” said Castro. “As the leader of this country, P-Noy should always uphold human rights, but in this case, he has denied justice to the 43 health workers,” Castro added.

Reports reveal that the 43 health workers are currently suffering from physical and psychological torture and harassments from the military.

“We challenge President Aquino to resolve this matter in the soonest possible time as the International Human Rights Day is fast approaching,” Castro ended.

Meanwhile, ACT Vice Chairperson Benjamin Valbuena recalled a similar experience during the 1990’s wherein militant teachers also staged a hunger strike to demand justice for the illegally dismissed teachers who led a nation-wide protest for salary increases during Corazon Aquino’s term. “We also had the same form of protest during the 1990’s under then Education Secretary Ricardo Cariño,” Valbuena mused.

The hunger strike of the 43 health workers can be considered as a drastic effort demand immediate justice for being illegally detained.

Valbuena emphasized that the 43 health workers are just few of the victims of the US Counter-Insurgency (COIN) Program adapted by the Pnoy’s administration. “Nothing has changed. To date, Pnoy’s first s ix months in office, there were already 20 extra-judicial killings, 2 enforced disappearances, 16 torture victims and 23 illegally arrested based on KARAPATAN report,” Valbuena concluded. ###

Teachers to troop to Malacanang, air their demands on GSIS to P-Noy

NEWS RELEASE -- September 3, 2010

Ref: France Castro, Secretary General (Mobile No. 09178502124)

Benjie Valbuena, Nat’l Vice-chairperson (09182399222)

Teachers to troop to Malacanang, air their demands on GSIS to P-Noy

Hundreds of teacher-leaders from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), and teachers' federations of the National Capital Region, will troop to Malacanang today at 3pm, to air their concerns on the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to President Benigno Aquino III.

ACT Secretary General Ms. France Castro said that they have requested to hold a dialog with the President so that they may present to him personally their issues and demands. She also added that they will also give to the president their urgent appeal regarding their concerns on the GSIS which is signed by thousands of teachers.

"The government employees, largely composed of teachers, have been burdened by unjust policies of the GSIS for years." Castro said. "Former president Gloria Arroyo did not do anything about it despite our clamor, which further aggravated our problems. It's high time that Pres. Noynoy did something about this."

ACT Vice-Chairperson Benjie Valbuena also said that during the leadership of former GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia, policies that are unlawful and that have caused hardships on GSIS members were introduced and implemented. Among these are the Premium-Based Policy and the Claims and Loan Interdependency Program (CLIP).

Valbuena added that the teachers and government employees are suffering from these policies, but their contributions have been used to line the pockets of GSIS officials who each received P6M in 2009 alone.

"Eventhough Garcia is no longer with the GSIS, the unjust policies are still being implemented and still continue to be a burden to us members," Valbuena said. "We demand that these unlawful and unjust policies be scrapped, and Garcia and his cohorts be held accountable!"

ACT also called on Pres. Aquino to appointment genuine representatives of public school teachers, government employees and retirees in the GSIS Board. They also demanded that the GSIS immediately refund all amount which were illegally deducted from members; the investigation and prosecution of Garcia and his cohorts regarding the use of GSIS funds and the implementation of unjust policies.

ACT also demanded for the dropping of charges and suits filed by Garcia against ACT Chairperson, and now ACT TEACHERS Partylist congressman Antonio Tinio.

"We hope that Pres. Noynoy will not only hear our demands, but to also act on it now," Valbuena added.

Together with ACT, teacher-leaders from the Manila Public School Association (MPSTA) and Quezon City Public School Association (QCPSTA) will join the dialog. ###

++++++++

AN URGENT APPEAL TO PRESIDENT NOY REGARDING OUR CONCERNS ON GSIS

(Alliance of Concerned Teachers)

The Government Service Insurance System was created by Commonwealth Act 186 way back in 1936 as a social insurance fund for all government employees in order to promote their efficiency and welfare.

During the leadership of President and General Manager Winston Garcia, policies were approved and implemented through mere board resolutions. These policies were unlawful and have caused hardships on us GSIS members.

These are the Premium-Based Policy and the Claims and Loan Interdependency Program. Under the Premium-based policy, the GSIS arbitrarily deducts from the social security benefits and any loan proceeds of the us members the premium contributions which, although already compulsorily deducted from our salaries, were not remitted by our employers to the GSIS.

Under the GSIS ACT, it is the obligation of the government agency concerned to remit said premiums to the GSIS, just as it is the duty of the GSIS to collect said premiums from these agencies. This is tantamount to punishing us members twice. It is not our fault if our respective agencies did not remit on time. The law states that the agency heads should be penalized in these cases.

The CLIP is another forced deduction scheme wherein obligations which are not yet due or are covered by a separate contract, like mortgage contracts, are deducted from the benefits and loan proceeds of GSIS members.

We GSIS members have long suffered because of this system in the GSIS. Many of us who have retired, some who have died and those of us who are in the active service continue to be victims of these unjust practices. And it is ironical that while we sacrifice and cannot get on time what is rightfully due us as claims, the administration and employees of GSIS get monthly salaries and yearly bonuses and benefits that are extravagantly high.

The new administration of President Noy has promised reforms. He has pledged to take the right path and therefore correct wrongdoings in the government. Let us therefore ask him to act on our demands so that the GSIS will serve as a reliable and just institution of government employees like us public school teachers and personnel.

1. To appoint genuine representatives of public school teachers, government employees and retirees in the GSIS Board. Of the 1.2 million members of the GSIS, 538,000 are from the Department of Education. May we therefore ask that the public school teachers be rightfully represented by a teacher leader who will ensure adequate and active participation in the policy-making process that affect the benefits and interests, especially of the public school teacher GSIS members. Incidentally, we are recommending Ms. Francisca Castro, the Secretary General of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers for consideration in this position. She is also the President of the Quezon City Public School Teachers Association, which is the biggest federation of Public School Teachers nationwide. She has been an active participant in the Task Force GSIS which was formed by the Department of Education in 2007 to 2009.

2. Advise GSIS to immediately refund all amount which were illegally deducted from the members. One concrete example of this is the case of the unpaid government share in premiums from 1997 to 1998 (the government failed to pay the increase in the premiums for a total of 18 months – July, 1997 to December, 1998). There was an increase in premium from 9.5% to 12%. GSIS started deducting this from their members in August, 2003. In 2006, DBM released the total amount of P3,299,791.00 (this was the equivalent of the 2.5% increase in government share earlier deducted from its members) so that GSIS could refund this deduction. Guidelines for refund were released in 2007. Up to now, this has not yet been refunded.

3. Invalidate and scrap the Premium-Based Policy and the Claims and Loan Interdependency program(CLIP) and direct the re-computation of benefits of all active and retired (and even those who have died) beneficiaries and immediately refund all over-payments made by them.

4. Investigate and prosecute Winston Garcia and his cohorts regarding the proper use of GSIS funds and in the implementation of unlawful policies that have caused untold sufferings to the GSIS members.

5. Recall and scrap court charges and suits filed by Winston Garcia against those who questioned and criticized his unlawful acts and policies. An example of this is the five counts of libel suit filed against our ACT Chairperson and now Representative of the ACT Teachers Partylist, Congressman Antonio Tinio.

We, the undersigned public school teachers and personnel, present these demands to President Noy for immediate action.

Teachers to Arroyo: “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

Teachers to Arroyo: “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) today joins various cause-oriented groups in bidding “Goodbye and good riddance!” to outgoing president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on her last day in office.

“The teachers will never forget Arroyo’s deplorable legacy to the teachers – inadequate teachers’ salaries, unjust policies of the GSIS, worsening teaching conditions due to shortages of critical resources in our public schools,” ACT Secretary General France Castro said.

Castro added that the teachers breathe a small sigh of relief in the knowledge that Arroyo is now leaving Malacanang, and finally ending her very miserable performance as president and her even more miserable performance to address the problems of the teachers and the Philippine education system. “We still hold her accountable for the legacy from her years as president,” she said.

However, Castro said, as long as these problems of the teachers and the educational system still remain, ACT will continue to fight for adequate salaries and benefits for teachers, additional government budget for education, and for the government to address the shortages of schools’ resources.

ACT also warns incoming president Noynoy Aquino not to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and for him to pursue bold steps to resolve the crisis on education.

The teachers urged Aquino to implement the following pressing issues on his first 100 days in office:

• Salary increase for teachers in the public and private sector. In the public sector, ensure the full implementation of the Salary Standardization Law 3 in the 2010;
• Immediate replacement of Winston Garcia as President and General Manager of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and rescinding of the unfair and unjust policies (premium-based policy, claims and loans interdependency policy, etc.) implemented during his term;
• Supplemental budget that will substantially address critical shortages in basic education and augment funding for state universities and colleges;
• Seek justice for teachers victimized by extrajudicial killings perpetrated during the Arroyo administration. These include the killings of ACT leaders Napoleon Pornasdoro and Vitoria Samonte; college professor and human rights activist Jose Maria Cui; and the young teacher Rebelyn Pitao.

“The teachers will be vigilant and continue to struggle until the crisis on education is resolved,” concluded Castro.###

News Release June 30, 2010

Teachers urge P-Noy to replace, file charges vs GSIS prexy Davao City –

Members of Kahugpungan sa mga Magtutudlo ug Kawani sa Edukasyon sa Mindanao – Alliance of Concerned Teachers (KAMKEM-ACT)
urge today President-elect Noynoy Aquino to oust GSIS
President and General Manager Winston Garcia and make him accountable
for the unjust policies that has troubled thousands of teacher
beneficiaries.

“For nearly one decade, we have suffered from the unjust policies
imposed by its politically-influential President and General Manager,
Winston Garcia,” said KAMKEM-ACT Davao Chairperson Elenito Escalante.

“Under the administration of Garcia, who is a strong ally of the Arroyo
administration, the GSIS has deprived us of benefits to which we are
entitled. We are burdened with huge deductions on the maturity of our
GSIS insurance policy, of being charged with unexplained premiums in
arrears, of not receiving annual dividends from GSIS, of being
denied survivorship benefits, of GSIS’ failure to deduct loan payments
resulting in huge interests on loans, and huge deductions suffered by
retirees,” Escalante said.

Davao teachers have previously protested Arroyo’s duplicity
in tolerating GSIS during a protest action held in front of the GSIS
office early this year.

“The Arroyo-Garcia tandem is at the root of our problems with
the GSIS and we challenge the new administration to make Arroyo and
Garcia accountable by filing administrative, criminal and civil charges
against them; Garcia for one violated key provisions of the GSIS law,”
Escalante said.

Among the demands of KAMKEM-ACT are the immediate refund of
all unwarranted deductions made by GSIS against members’ benefits;
scrapping of the Premium-Based Policy, the Claims and Loans
Interdependency Program, and other policies introduced by Garcia which
have deprived GSIS members of the full enjoyment of benefits to which
they are entitled; and introduction of genuine reforms that will
strengthen the role of GSIS as the social security fund of government
employees. #

For reference:

ELENITO ESCALANTE

0923-852-8506

ACT TEACHERS

PARTYLIST

Rm. 301, UCCP Bldg., 877 EDSA, Quezon City

Mobile 0920-9220817 Email actpl2010@gmail. com

Website www.act-teachers. org

February 22, 2010

NEWS RELEASE

References:

Antonio L. Tinio (0920-9220817) , ACT TEACHERS Partylist National President

U.S. firm engaged by COMELEC for source code review

has tainted record

The U.S. firm employed by the Commission on Elections to certify the Automated Election System to be used in the May 2010 national elections has a tainted track record in reviewing election systems.

This was pointed out by ACT TEACHERS Partylist president Antonio Tinio in a press statement today.

On February 9, 2010, COMELEC announced that SysTest Labs of Denver, Colorado has completed its review of the source code and has certified it for use in the upcoming elections.

According to its website (http://www.systest. com/), SysTest Labs, Incorporated is an internationally- accredited “quality assurance and software performance testing company.” Last October 2009, COMELEC, through Resolution No. 8677, awarded SysTest Labs a Php 70 million contract to conduct the testing and certification, including the legally-mandated source code review, of the Automated Election System.

“Source code review is critical because this is the only way the public can be assured that the voting machines to be used in May can be trusted—meaning they are accurately counting the actual votes cast by voters,” explained Tinio. He explained that the source code refers to the human-readable instructions to be executed by the electronic counting machines that will be used to count votes in the upcoming elections.

Tinio cited Section 12 of Republic Act 9369, the poll automation law, which requires the COMELEC to make the source code of the computer programs to be used in the May 2010 elections to be made available to the public for review. Section 14 states: "Once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof."

However, the COMELEC is under heavy fire for restricting access to the software source code to be used by Smartmatic-TIM. Smartmatic is the Venezuelan firm contracted by COMELEC to implement poll automation. “Instead of making the source code available to any interested party for review, COMELEC chose to engage SysTest Labs as an independent, third party reviewer, who will have complete and exclusive access to Smartmatic’s source code. This is a blatant violation of the law,” said Tinio. “What makes it worse is that the firm chosen by COMELEC has a tainted track record as a reviewer of automated election systems.”

Accreditation suspended by US federal government

Tinio pointed out that in October 2008, the US federal government suspended its accreditation of SysTest Labs as one of five independent laboratories that could conduct testing and certification of electronic voting systems to be used in US elections. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology suspended its accreditation after it observed SysTest Lab’s “lack of properly documented and validated test methods,” “testing conducted by unqualified or untrained personnel,” and “improper assurances made to manufacturers regarding testing outcomes.” [i]

“The US federal government was concerned not only that SysTest Labs did not have the technical competence to review electronic voting systems. What’s worse, it raised questions about the company’s ethics,” said Tinio.

Tinio noted that the US Election Assistance Commisison investigated SysTest Labs for allowing one of its clients, the manufacturer and vendor ES&S (Election Systems and Software), to unduly influence its certification procedures. “EAC has concerns that SysTest is allowing and inviting manufacturers to play an inappropriate role in the development of test plans.” Furthermore, “it is not appropriate for a manufacturer to be directly involved in creating plans for testing their own systems.” The EAC also chided SysTest labs for making “an inappropriate promise of certification” to the manufacturer.[ii]

“In other words, the US federal government was concerned that SysTest Labs was rigging its certification process in behalf of ES&S,” said Tinio. He noted that ES&S iVotronics touch screen electronic voting system certified by SysTest Labs has been cited in a number of electoral controversies, including statewide and local elections in Florida in 2006.[iii]

As a fallout from the suspension of its accreditation, in January 2009, another election services vendor, Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold), sued SysTest Labs in a US Federal Court for fraud, fraudulent inducement, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conversion and deception. Premier claimed that SysTest Lab’s substandard procedures wreaked havoc on its business.[iv]

Tinio noted that Smartmatic has had a long-standing relationship with SysTest Labs. Its Smartmatic Auditable Election System (SAES) 1800 Precinct Tabulator, which will be deployed in over 70,000 precincts for election day, was certified as “over 99.99999%” accurate. “But the certification comes from SysTest Labs, possibly in accordance with the shoddy procedures criticized by the US federal government.”[v]

Tinio added that the US federal government subsequently reinstated its accreditation of SysTest Labs in March 2009 after the company made changes in compliance with the NIST’s standards. “SysTest was able to demonstrate through documentation and observations that they have corrected the nonconformities that lead to their suspension.”[vi] These included “major changes” in documentation of test methods, changes in personnel, and training in professional ethics for its staff.

Public source code review needed

Tinio reiterated the need for COMELEC to comply with the poll automation law by allowing interested parties to conduct their own source code review. “ACT TEACHERS Partylist join other parties, concerned citizens’ groups and individuals in denouncing COMELEC’s continuing refusal to comply with the provisions of the poll automation law. With less than 90 days to go before election day, all that it is offering is a sham review, a so-called walk-through of the source code under the supervision of Smartmatic.”

“Given SysTest Lab’s less than sterling track record, its history of unethical conduct partnerships with the clients that it certifies, opening up the source code for public review becomes all the more necessary. This is the only way that the public will be assured of that the Automated Election System will deliver credible results,” concluded Tinio. #

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[i] Letter of US Election Assistance Commission to SysTest Labs, October 29, 2008 and

Letter of National Institute of Standards and Technology to SysTest Labs, October 28, 2008. Available for download at the US Election Assistance Commission website, http://www.eac. gov/program- areas/voting- systems/docs/ eac-notice- of-intent- to-suspend- ltr-systest- final.pdf/ attachment_ download/ file.

[ii] Letter US Election Assistance Commission to SysTest Labs, July 25, 2008, with attached email correspondence between SysTest Labs and ES&S. Available for download at the US Election Assistance Commission website http://www.eac. gov/program- areas/voting- systems/docs/ accreditation- docs-7-22- 08-ltr-to- systest-labs- final.pdf/ attachment_ download/ file.

[iii] Susan Pynchon and Kitty Garber, “ Sarasota ’s Vanished Votes: An Investigation into the Cause of Uncounted Votes in the 2006 Congressional District 13 Race in Sarasota County , Florida .” Florida Fair Elections Coalition, January 2008. Available for download at http://www.floridaf airelections. org/reports/ Vanishing_ Votes.pdf.

[iv] “Electronic Voting Manufacturer Claims Testing Lab's Shoddy Work Wreaked Havoc.” Courthouse News Service, January 23, 2009. http://www.courthou senews.com/ 2009/01/23/ Electronic_ Voting_Manufactu rer_Claims_ Testing_Lab_ s_Shoddy_ Work_Wreaked_ Havoc.htm.

[v] “Technical Sheet SAES 1800 Precinct Tabulator.” http://www.smartmat ic.com/fileadmin /users/docs/ SAES/SAES1800_ technicalsheet_ v2.0.pdf. This states that the SAES 1800 is “tested to stringent accuracy levels of U.S. Federal 2005 VVSG Vol 1 and Vol 2 by Systest Labs, a certified federal testing lab.”

[vi] Letter of National Institute of Standards and Technology to SysTest Labs, February 26, 2009 at http://vote. nist.gov/ NVLAP/NVLAP- ReinstatingSysTe stAccreditation. htm; “EAC lifts suspension of SysTest’s accreditation,” http://www.eac. gov/blog- postings/ eac-accepts- systest-lab.