EDUCATION Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara on Tuesday said the proposed P50,000 increase in the entry-level salary of public school teachers was "doable" if the government's fiscal condition improves.

Speaking to reporters, Angara said that for now, the increase in the teachers' pay continues under the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) for government workers.

"Maybe in the future, if the government's fiscal condition improves," Angara said during a chance interview when asked if the proposed P50,000 pay hike for teachers was doable.

"But in the near term, the SSL made by the President is quite okay because Teacher 1, for example, we only see the monthly when you compute the basic salary. It seems small but if you look at it in one year, it will increase by P33,000 for one year. It's not bad," he added.

Angara, former Senate Committee on Finance chief, had been pushing for a wage hike for government employees, especially when he was still head of the panel.

In February, Makabayan bloc lawmakers France Castro of ACT Teachers party-list, Arlene Brosas of Gabriela party-list and Raoul Manuel of Kabataan party-list filed House Bill 9920, seeking a P50,000 entry-level salary for public school teachers.

The proposed substantial salary increases for public school teachers would "close the gap between their salaries and the cost of living."

They said it would also "address the distortion created by the doubling of entry-level pay of military and uniformed personnel."

If passed, this would almost double the basic wage for public school teachers of about P27,000 a month, Castro said. This would also be roughly the equivalent of Salary Grade 15 under the SSL.

Earlier, Angara said he would study the proposal in coordination with other agencies, such as the Department of Finance and the Department of Budget and Management.

"The salary increase of government employees is set by Congress. And we are 100 percent supportive of that and we have been pushing for that, especially when I was part of the Senate Committee on Finance," he said in an earlier interview.

"Let's see and study it. We are 100 percent in support of all these increases for teachers because we know that the quality of education is affected when the teachers are really inspired. And we also get to attract the best and the brightest," he added.

Aside from increased salary, Angara said he aims to give teachers better working conditions by reducing their non-teaching tasks so they could concentrate on their main duty.

Guidance counselors

Meanwhile, Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) Executive Director Karol Mark Yee said there were around 5,000 vacant guidance counselor positions in schools across the country, exacerbating the country's problem of bullying.

With the current setup, Yee said the country might take 14 years to fill the vacancies.

"Our vacancies in the DepEd (Department of Education), there are 5,000 unfilled plantilla positions for guidance counselors. But when you look at it, there's no institution in the country that offers master's in guidance counseling," Yee said during the Palace press briefing.

"By average, our graduation number is around 300 per year. To fill all the vacancies, it will take us 14 years by the current setup," he added.

Angara said the DepEd, the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and the Civil Service Commission would work and enforce a temporary solution to address the matter.

He said they were working to allow guidance and counseling degree holders, psychology graduates, and other professionals with related expertise to fill the vacancies of guidance counselors in schools.

At the same time, Angara urged legislators to amend the law that requires a master's degree for guidance counselors.

"That makes it difficult, that requirement to be a guidance counselor, you must have a master's degree. So that's hard. To be a teacher, you only need a bachelor's degree. You don't need a master's degree," he said.

Under Republic Act 9258 or the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004, guidance counseling may be practiced only by someone who passed the licensure exam given by the Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling.

The exam may be taken by a holder of a bachelor's in guidance and counseling or in other allied disciplines and a master's degree in guidance and counseling from an institution in the Philippines or abroad recognized or accredited by the CHEd.

Angara said the DepEd would also monitor the compliance of schools when it comes to implementing their anti-bullying policy.

"Stipulated in the anti-bullying law, which we authored when I was still a congressman, is that each school is required to have an anti-bullying policy. But the law does not specify how strict they have to be, but a policy is required," Angara said.

"The problem on the ground [is that] very few schools have their own anti-bullying policy. We will really monitor and track the compliance on this," he added.