DepEd: No payment for COLA processing

Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz warned Department of Education employees and teachers not to pay any fees to any organization claiming to process unpaid cost of living allowance.

In an advisory, Luz said that DepEd's attention has been called to a practice of a number of national teacher organizations collecting fees from teachers for the processing of so called unpaid COLA from the previous years.

He said that Section 12 of Republic Act 6578 provides that all allowances including COLA, except for certain specified allowances, are deemed included in the standardized salary rates prescribed.

Since the standardized salaries already include the consolidated allowances, a separate grant for the "unpaid" COLA as claimed by certain groups will be considered double compensation and is prohibited by law.

The DBM circular read: "In view of the foregoing payment of allowances and compensation, such as COLA, amelioration allowance and inflation-connected allowances, among others, which are already integrated in the basic salary, are deemed unauthorized, unless otherwise provided by law."

"Should there be any teacher organization that persists in collecting fees for the "processing of claims" for the so-called unpaid COLA, please report this to the Office of the Undersecretary (Finance & Administration) immediately or through DEtxt (SMART 09194560027, Globe 2327). Please indicate which organization is collecting fees and the division in which this is occurring," Luz said.

If teachers have had to pay for this so-called processing, they should ask for refunds. Note, however, that the department cannot request or nor process such refunds. -Jasmin R. Uy /BRP