Hundreds of public school teachers will stage a demonstration in Quezon City on Monday to reiterate their demand for a salary increase.

An estimated 500 public school teachers will march toward Batasang Pambansa Monday afternoon to protest specifically the impending passage of Salary Standardization Law 3 (SSL 3), the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said.

SSL 3 seeks to grant pay increases to government employees over the next four years. ACT, however, branded the proposed wage hikes as “unacceptable to teachers and our colleagues in the public sector.”

"[SSL 3] provides a P6,500 increase to teachers over the next four years. Spread out over four years, this will translate to a mere P1,625 monthly increase per year. This is substantially less than our demand for a P9,000 hike over the next three years," said ACT national chairman Antonio Tinio.

He also condemned the alleged failure of the measure to address the purported distortions in the government's standardized pay scale, which, he said, placed teachers at a disadvantage.

These distortions were worsened when the Arroyo administration upgraded the salaries of military personnel in 2002, he added. 

He also noted other alleged shortcomings of SSL 3, including its failure to upgrade government nurses to Salary Grade 15; failure to grant an immediate P3,000 increase to the lowest salary grades; and failure to grant equal increases in pay to local government employees compared to those in the national government.

He called on the legislators to introduce amendments when the bicameral conference committee meets to finalize the SSL 3.

Tinio, meantime, assured the public that the demonstration will not disrupt classes on Monday.

Prior to Monday’s demonstration, around 1,000 teachers are set to hear Mass at Our Lady of Grace Parish in Caloocan City Sunday evening to kick off  school year 2009-2010.