A historic achievement

We wrote last week on the nationwide regionalization of DepEd's payroll service division. We said this was a historic development for teachers and to highlight what it meant to them we catalogued their salary-related sufferings. This one is a sequel to that piece.

Circa 1984 the teachers in two school districts in Cebu numbering about 500 discovered that their salaries were reduced by P50 each purportedly for insurance premiums with a private company. The teachers swore they did not sign any policy contracts with any company nor did they signify their option for salary deductions. When informed about it, the Payroll Office said they had copies of the insurance policies signed by the teachers. Nevertheless, upon request by the Division Office that office agreed to end the deductions at once. Two weeks later the "policies" arrived much to the consternation of the teachers because these contained spurious entries. In fact, the supposed signatures of the teachers were fake. The question was, how come the Manila PSD proceeded to make the deductions without first verifying the authenticity of the documents?

Another case of questionable happenings associated with the PSD occurred in 1996 when more than 800 teachers in Cebu City received their tax withholding certificates for that year. Since teachers' salaries were disbursed by PSD their withholding taxes were collected by that office. As practiced, the amounts deducted were indicated in the payrolls, which together with the checks were sent to division offices.

The problem discovered was that the amounts indicated in the withholding certificates were much less than what the teachers had actually paid as evidenced by the payroll entries. How much were the discrepancies? These ranged from P2,000 to P6,000 per teacher! This was double whammy to these teachers. First, their salaries were already reduced because of the withheld taxes. Second, they had to pay again the equivalent of the unreported tax when they filed their income tax returns.

To recover the "lost" money, complaints were filed with DepEd central office. For several months nothing was heard of the case. When follow-ups were made, the teachers were asked to submit several documents to substantiate their claims. But even after these requirements were complied with, it took DepEd's payroll office almost three years before refunds were received.

What we have narrated were some of the sad experiences of Cebu teachers in connection with their transactions with the centralized payroll office. Teachers from other provinces in the Visayas had also similar experiences.

What about in other regions, did these problems also exist? Most likely. In regions 2 and 8 where this writer once served as a regional official, the same irregularities had been observed. In fact, such occurrences were more pervasive in these areas considering the absence of militant media and the tendency of teachers to clam up on their problems.

We purposely described these unfortunate incidents to underscore the significance of the decentralization of DepEd's payroll office. Although the department has not publicized it, this event is a historic happening in the Philippine educational system. Considering that this has been a 60-years dream of Filipino teachers, it is indeed a milestone in the thrust to make the system teachers-friendly.

For this, teachers should thank their former Secretary Edilberto de Jesus for his courage and foresight in dispersing to regional capitals the functions of DepEd's payroll office. And of course, they should not forget that the brain behind this great achievement was no other than Cebu's former Congressman, Jose R. Gullas.

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