On Friday, the Department of Education (DepEd) said that about 100,000 teachers will be promoted this year through the Expanded Career Progression (ECP) program to address the backlog of promotions.
“In 2026, thanks to the large budget given by the President and Congress, we aim to promote 100,000,” Education Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara told the press in an interview.
“President Bongbong’s program promotes the promotion of the positions and positions of our teachers because we have seen that there are teachers who have not been promoted to Teacher 1 for ten years,” he added.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. noted that the ECP will help top teachers advance their careers through merit-based and competency-based methods. At the same time, this framework will also open up opportunities for new graduates.
“We will increase the job opportunities of our teachers by reorganizing strategies by creating senior positions,” he said in his speech at the swearing-in ceremony for teachers and school leaders in the National Capital Region (NCR).
“We can have senior teachers move up based on their performance and open up new positions for new students,” he added.
Among the 2,915 employees who were recently promoted in NCR, 2,186 were promoted through natural vacancies, while 729 were promoted through reorganization of ECP.
One of the organizers, Eloisa Reyes Cruz, 64, said the ECP program helped her to be promoted from Teacher I to Teacher III after 10 years of working at Eusebio High School in Pasig City.
“I am very grateful because before I was not promoted because I still lacked school,” he told reporters in Filipino. “I missed the opportunity to study because of family issues.”
Unlike the previous promotion process, Ms. Cruz emphasized that the ECP has a faster process and less paperwork.
“You have to process a lot of things with a normal thing, but right now, they’re only asking us for a few needs, and it’s fast,” he said.
“I don’t know what will happen to the second group, but this time it took us two to three months to process,” he added.
Along with the higher position, the salary was also increased from P26,000 to P32,000.
P50,000 TEACHER ENTRY SALARY
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines (ACT) reiterated its call for an entry level P50,000 for public school teachers, following DepEd’s discussion with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on a flexible long-term loan program.
“Although we recognize DepEd’s effort to address teachers’ financial problems, more loans – even in the long term – are not the solution,” ACT Philippines Chair Ruby Bernardo said in a Facebook post on Thursday.
The group added that labeling the debt crisis as a “loan restructuring” jeopardizes the existence of loans as part of teachers’ lives.
“Teachers need a starting salary of P50,000 to support their families and stop relying on loans to survive,” he added.
Although Mr. Angara expressed his support for this proposal by the teachers’ group, he said that the final decision depends on the approval of Congress.
“Yes, we support that but it depends on Congress because we know that the budget given is already big. Even if Congress says we can give it, we have to respect it,” he told reporters in the Philippines.
In 2025, the position of Teacher I in public schools has a Salary Grade (SG) 11, or about P30,024. Meanwhile, Teachers II and III fall under SG 12 and 13 or P32,245 and P34,421, respectively. – Almira Louise S. Martinez
