RIGHT in time for National Teachers’ Day, Quezon City District V Representative PM Vargas draws attention to a crisis facing Filipino educators: a growing shortage of teaching personnel and widespread job insecurity- especially among volunteers –vis-à-vis the rising demands and challenging working conditions.
Vargas, a consistent advocate of education in the country, proposed two key measures to resolve these urgent concerns: Distant Public School Teachers Incentive Bill- to provide monthly allowances to teachers assigned in far-flung or remote schools, recognizing the hardships of travel, isolation and resource scarcity; and Plantilla Positions for Volunteer Teachers Bill -to create a permanent Plantilla position for volunteer teachers who have served at least five (5) continuous years, provided they meet qualifications and civil service requirements, giving them stability, a regular salary, and benefits.
“Learning outcomes are a function of resources and facilities. When teaching personnel are short and employment is not just a bureaucratic concern—they affect students, communities, and the morale of our teachers”, says Vargas. “ When we lose over 30,000 teaching-related personnel in a year or when volunteer teachers remain on the margins despite years of service, it’s a failure of policy and gratitude.
Between 2022 and 2023, the number of public school personnel dropped by around 38,000 teachers, teaching-related, and non-teaching staff. Meanwhile, the Department of Education reports that for the current school year, more than 150,000 teaching positions remain either unfilled or temporarily covered by volunteers and contractual hires.
The proposed measures are designed to help fill the teacher vacancies by encouraging movement to remote areas (through incentives), normalizing and regularizing the status of veteran volunteer teachers so that commitment yields security, not precarity, and improving student-teacher ratios and the overall quality of education in underserved communities.
For National Teachers’ Day, Vargas calls on his fellow legislators, the Department of Education, and concerned agencies to support policies that put teachers at the heart of education reform.
“Our country may be faced with current anomalies, but this should not deter us from addressing perennial concerns that have stagnated the country’s growth, such as its poor learning outcomes”, concludes the legislator.
October 5 is the annual National Teacher’s Day celebration, honoring Filipino educators whose dedication and service continue to shape future generations and push the boundaries of education outcomes in the country.
