The Department of Education (DepEd) announced Saturday that the teachers who displayed exemplary or heroic acts in the performance of their duties as Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) will be given presidential citations by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

As this developed, the BEIs continue to clamor for the release of their honorarium as well as seek additional pay for the services they rendered during the May 10, 2010 automated elections.

Education Secretary Mona Valisno said the presidential citation aims to make a lasting impression on the teachers. “Our teachers and staff performed their election duties with utmost impartiality, neutrality, and competence and this added great credibility to the entire electoral process and helped gain people’s trust in the automated counting,” said Valisno.

Valisno said they will cite BEI members who strictly adhered to the 9-point guidelines she issued for the 2010 elections, specifically those who exerted efforts to respect and defend the sanctity of the ballot; uphold the people’s right to suffrage as mandated under the Constitution; honor thy oath and duty as teachers in ensuring a free, honest, and clean elections; perform to the best of one’s ability our duty as mandated by law and the rules and regulations prescribed by Comelec with honor and integrity; preserve the integrity and dignity of the teaching profession by being a role model among all civil servants by not engaging directly or indirectly in any partisan political activity except to vote; maintain utmost impartiality and neutrality in the exercise of  official functions during the conduct of the elections; refuse any form of bribe or influence from politicians and their supporters and to  report to higher authorities any attempt to use force or intimidation in order to manipulate the results of the elections; recognize the elections as a crucial stage for change and transition for the welfare of the country and the future of our children; and perform your official functions with utmost dedication and  professionalism as our service to God, people, and country.

The nominations for Outstanding BEI are open to the public. “They only need to submit a one-page rationale on why the nominee should be given the award and send it to my office,” added DepEd Spokesperson and Assistant Secretary Jonathan Malaya.

The Department continues to express its great satisfaction with the outcome of the automated polls and also congratulated  President Arroyo for the successful automated election. Valisno also cited that this is one of the major goals of the Beat the Odds program that the President declared in 2004 as the path her administration will take in her six-year term.

Meanwhile, the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) said only few teachers from several localities reported that they have received the honorarium as of Wednesday.

“It is quite ironic that everyone, even Comelec agrees that the success of the recently concluded elections was largely attributed to the teachers, yet the compensation for our hard work is not prioritized,” said TDC National Chairman  Benjo Basas who also served as BEI chairman in one of the clustered precincts in Caloocan City.

The memorandum of agreement between the Comelec and the Department of Education (DepEd) stipulates that teachers, who served the elections as BEI,  would be entitled to a P3,000 honorarium, and allowances in the amount of P500 for the sealing of book of voters, P500 for the sealing and testing of PCOS machines, and P300 for transportation.

Nevertheless, the group expressed their gratitude to all sectors – including the international community, the media, the Comelec and the Smartmatic – who never failed to acknowledge the  very significant role of public school teachers in their assessment of the conduct of the polls.

Basas said the praises for the work of the teachers were really inspiring. “However, we would be more appreciative if the  Commission would be sensitive enough to provide other means of gratification like in the form of additional compensation,” said Basas.

TDC has been receiving complaints from the teachers who were in the field that the P3,000 honorarium for BEIs and the P1,500 for the support staff is not enough to compensate the amount of work delivered.

He continued that it is known to the Commission and to everybody that the tasks given to the teachers were not easy, connsidering that this system was the first in the country. “It exposed us to many challenges – both physical and psychological  – especially during the voting period, which was extended by an hour,” he stressed.

Basas revealed that most of the teachers started their election duties in the late hours of May 9 when they got the election paraphernalia from respective city halls and ended their tasks at dawn of May 11 for the retrieval of the CF cards and ERs to the canvassing centers. “Our average work was a straight 30 hours, without any amount of sleep,” he said.

“We humbly ask the Comelec to grant us the additional compensation equivalent to 50 percent honorarium for all those who served the May 10, 2010 elections,” he said.

Valisno supported the call of teachers for additional compensation and urged the Comelec to seriously consider the appeal.

She said the teachers deserve this for being “unsung heroes” of the country’s first automated elections and “they were also a large part of the success of the polls for being frontliners.”

Valisno added that many of the teachers even went to the precincts as early as 3 a.m. and left around the same time the next day. “They endured the long hours of voting, worked on numerous technical glitches, and ease the tempers of frustrated voters,”  she said.

TDC believes that the Comelec and the budget department could provide their request since they have enough funds for the compensation of the poll workers. “From 800,000 BEIs in the manual polls, they hired only 240,000 for this automated election, thus giving us heavier manual tasks, the only automated here is the vote appreciation and counting. They save money at the expense of the teachers, by sacrificing our welfare,” Basas lamented.

Comelec has promised to tackle the request in their en banc meeting but no decision has been made as of press time. (With a report from Eugene Y. Santos)