President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed into law on Monday a measure providing Filipino teachers with an annual teaching supply allowance of up to P10,000.

Under Republic Act 11997, also known as the Kabalikat sa Pagtuturo Act, public school instructors under the basic education curriculum will receive a P5,000 teaching allowance for the 2024-2025 school year.

The allowance will increase to P10,000 starting with the 2025-2026 school year and will remain at that level for the subsequent academic year.

The new law specifies that the allowance will be exempt from income tax, allowing teachers to take home the full amount.

During the signing ceremony, Marcos emphasized that the law is a crucial component of the Matatag curriculum. It aims to relieve teachers of financial worries so they can focus more on their students.

“Today, thanks to the hard work of our legislators, we receive the much-needed assistance for the Matatag agenda, specifically to support teachers so they can concentrate on teaching,” Marcos said.

“With the passage of this law, we are easing some of the burden that you [teachers] carry each day. When teachers finds themselves in financial straits, they are sometimes distracted and spend their time trying to increase the support they can provide their families,” he added.

The bill had significant support in Congress, with 13 principal authors in the Senate and 115 in the House of Representatives.

Senators Bong Revilla, Robin Padilla, Sonny Angara, and Bong Go were among those who filed the bill in the Senate. Representatives France Castro, Arlene Brosas, Raoul Manuel, and Emigdio Tanjuatco were among the principal authors in the House.

A check of the House website revealed that former ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio introduced a similar bill as early as 2011.

Currently, the starting monthly salary for Filipino teachers in public schools is P27,000. Various groups have long advocated for salary increases, noting that the family living wage in Metro Manila for a household of five is P1,192 per day, or P35,760 per month, according to the IBON Foundation.

However, in the private sector, the teachers’ remuneration mainly amounts to “starvation pay.”