Bill seeking to double teachers' chalk allowance ok'd

The Senate approved today on third and final reading a bill seeking to increase the chalk allowance of public school teachers from P2,500 to P5,500.

Senate Bill No. 812 or the Teaching Supplies Allowance Act of 2017, was approved with 21 affirmative votes, zero negative vote and zero abstention.

Senator Sonny Trillanes IV, chairman of the Senate Committee of the Senate Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation and sponsor of the bill, said the increase in chalk allowance would help teachers effectively perform their tasks as educators.

Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto, author of the proposed law, defined chalk allowance as "teaching supplies allowance given to teachers at the start of the year for consumable supplies such as pens, paper, cartolinas, paste, erasers and chalk."

The bill was also authored by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian.

"Chalk , pens, papers, and cartolinas are to teachers what bullets and combat rations are to soldiers. In the war against illiteracy, these are the ammo our teachers use and with the little supplied to them, they can only improve as much," Recto said.

"For them to push back ignorance, we have to beef up their ammo load. This bill sends the reassuring message to our literacy war frontliners that we have always their welfare in mind and that their simple requests have not been forgotten," he added.

Hopefully, Recto said, a P5,000 allowance would allow teachers to expand their shopping list to include a USB or other computer and internet-use supplies needed in the digital age.

According to Recto, increasing the chalk allowance to P5,000 would cost P4 billion based on the 2017 Department of Education (DepEd) teaching workforce of 797,119.

The full P5,000 allowance would be appropriated in the GAA.

"This legislation is our humble way of providing more aid to public school teachers in their noble work of educating the next generation of Filipino citizens. Hopefully, the larger chalk allowance will help alleviate some of the economic burden suffered by these educators, who often use money out of their own pockets just to provide school supplies for their students," Gatchalian said.