ACT Cordillera

ACT on DepEd's plan for active shooter drills in schools

Equipping students, teachers, and school personnel with the knowledge and skills to respond during emergencies can help reduce harm and save lives. However, preparedness measures alone cannot prevent violence from occurring in schools.

DepEd must go beyond a primarily reactive approach and give equal, if not greater, attention to preventing violence before it happens. Schools must remain genuine zones of peace and safety and not places where active shooter drills become a regular necessity because the conditions that breed insecurity remain unaddressed.

The government must confront the root causes of unsafe school environments. Chronic underfunding of education, shortages of teachers and education support personnel, weak mental health and psychosocial support systems, inadequate school safety infrastructure, and a broader culture of impunity marked by the lack of accountability for abuses of power and corruption all undermine the ability of our education system to protect learners and education workers.

Preparedness is necessary, but it is no substitute for prevention. School safety cannot rely on emergency response protocols alone. It requires confronting the systemic conditions that enable violence and place learners and education workers at risk in the first place.

Salamat sa lahat ng dumalo at nakiisa sa ating forum tungkol sa ugnayang Pilipinas at Amerika, imperyalismo, at ang mga realidad sa likod ng tinatawag na “Philippine-American Friendship Day," ngayong July 7 sa UC Auditorium.

Patuloy nating ipagtanggol ang kasaysayan at isulong ang tunay na kalayaan at pambansang soberanya! Kitakits sa ating susunod pang forum at talakayan ✊

What lies behind the so-called Philippine-American “friendship”?

Eighty years after the formal grant of independence in 1946, it remains important to revisit the history of July 4 and uncover the deeper story of unequal treaties, military agreements, economic dependence, and continuing foreign influence that continue to shape Philippine-American relations today.

Tanggol Kasaysayan Kabataan, PUbliCus, and Alliance of Concerned Teachers Cordillera invite everyone interested in history to join the forum, “Philippine-American Relations, Independence, and Contemporary Realities,” as we unpack the historical roots of Philippine-American relations and examine their continuing impact on Philippine sovereignty and national development.

👨‍🏫 Speaker: Arnold Padilla, Secretary General of International League of Peoples’ Struggle - Philippines
📅 July 7, 2026 (Tuesday)
🕘 9:00 AM
📍 University of the Cordilleras Auditorium

Four years after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assumed office promising to uplift the welfare of Filipino workers and improve the country's education system, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines said teachers and workers continue to suffer from depressed wages, rising costs of living, chronic understaffing, and deteriorating working conditions.

"The Marcos administration entered office with promises of better salaries for teachers, reduced administrative workload, fair compensation for overtime and teaching overload, and stronger government support for public education. Four years later, teachers remain overworked, underpaid, and forced to shoulder the consequences of government's chronic neglect of the education sector," ACT Chairperson Ruby Bernardo said.

ACT said the administration's announcement of an P85 daily wage increase for minimum wage earners in Metro Manila only underscores the growing wage crisis confronting Filipino workers.

"Any wage increase won by workers is welcome, but let us not mistake crumbs for genuine economic relief. The P85 increase remains grossly inadequate against the relentless rise in the prices of food, transportation, housing, utilities, fuel, and other basic necessities. Workers deserve living wages—not piecemeal adjustments that are immediately wiped out by inflation," Bernardo said.

The group stressed that teachers, as workers, continue to experience the same erosion of purchasing power while bearing the additional burden of sustaining an underfunded public education system.

"Public school teachers continue to subsidize education with their own labor, time, and income. Many still spend out of their own pockets for classroom materials while managing overcrowded classes, excessive paperwork, and responsibilities that extend far beyond teaching. These conditions expose the widening gap between the government's rhetoric and the daily realities confronting our educators."

ACT emphasized that while teachers have secured gains in recent years—including the increase in the Teaching Supplies Allowance—these were only achieved through years of sustained collective struggle by teachers, education workers, and their organizations.

"Meanwhile, key commitments repeatedly made by the Marcos administration—including reducing teachers' administrative workload, ensuring fair compensation for overtime and teaching overload, providing meaningful career progression, and substantially improving teachers' salaries—remain largely unfulfilled. These continue to be demands that teachers must fight for," Bernardo said.

The group also pointed to the continuing shortages of classrooms, teachers, and education support personnel, which have further intensified teachers' workload and undermined the quality of public education.

"The greatest crisis confronting teachers today is survival itself. No educator who has dedicated their life to teaching should have to worry whether their salary will be enough to feed their family, pay rent, or meet their children's educational needs. Yet this has become the daily reality for thousands of Filipino teachers."

ACT reiterated its call for an entry-level salary of P50,000 for public school teachers, a P5,000 Personnel Economic Relief Allowance (PERA), a P1,200 daily minimum wage for all workers, the immediate hiring of teachers and education support personnel, accelerated classroom construction, genuine decongestion of classes, the elimination of excessive non-teaching tasks, and substantially increased public investment in public education.

"Four years under the Marcos administration have shown that teachers and workers cannot rely on promises alone. ACT calls on teachers, education workers, fellow workers across all sectors, parents, students, and the Filipino people to continue the fight for living wages, better working conditions, and quality public education. Only through a united and organized movement can we compel the government to fulfill its obligations to those whose labor keeps our schools, our communities, and our nation running," Bernardo concluded. #

PRESS RELEASE | June 30, 2026
ACT to BBM: Four years in office, poor living and working conditions for teachers and workers persist under your admin