Dapat dagdagan na! Comelec urged to review allowances of teachers working in polls

By Billy Begas

Assistant Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to review the amounts of honoraria and allowances granted to public school teachers and other individuals rendering election service.

Castro also urged the House of Representatives to hear House Resolution 2181 to determine if the budget allocated for the compensation of election service workers is adequate.

The lady solon pointed out that under the Election Service Reform Act (Republic Act 10756) allowances and honoraria for election service volunteers shall be reviewed by Comelec in consultation with the Department of Education every three years.

“Since the enactment of the ESRA law in 2016, amounts for honoraria and allowances have not once been reviewed and increased” Castro noted.

Castro said that Comelec already stated that it will likely adopt a 12-hour election day due to the contingencies to minimize and prevent further spread of COVID-19.

“Longer hours for voting would mean that poll workers will have to serve longer hours for their election duties considering they fulfill tasks other than supervision of voting centers…. This is why the COMELEC should also review the necessity of giving a COVID-19 daily hazard pay to all election service volunteers to compensate for their heightened risk of contracting the virus for every day that they are serving,” she added.

ACT has proposed to increase the ESRA honoraria to P10,000 for chairpersons of Electoral Boards, P9,000 for members of Electoral Boards, P8,000 for DepEd Supervisor Officials, and P7,000 for support staff as well as travel allowance of P3,000 to P5,000 and food allowance of P2,500.

Comelec said that it proposed a P13 billion budget to increase the honorarium, hazard pay and transportation allowance of poll workers for the 2022 national elections but only P7 billion was approved by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

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