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When the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) launched the Education International (EI) Go Public! Fund Education campaign in The Philippines, the union ensured that the country’s 120,000 education support personnel (ESP) were at the very center of its advocacy. ACT mobilised around the rights, living and working conditions of the bookkeepers, janitors, security guards, librarians, guidance associates, ICT aides, laboratory technicians, and school nurses who keep public schools running.

Towards permanent positions for all Filipino education support personnel

For decades, education support personnel had been invisible in policy debates, trapped in contractual “job order” or “contract of service” arrangements, paid as little as 11,551 Philippines pesos (173 euros) a month, and denied the basic security of tenure, social insurance, and promotion tracks. Through sustained union advocacy, mass protests under the banner of “Go Public! Friday of Action” or Black Friday outside the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), and a series of tripartite meetings with the Department of Education (DepEd) and the DBM, ACT compelled the government to begin abolishing contractual schemes in basic education—for both teachers and some education support personnel.

“We never grew tired of demanding higher wages and the creation of more permanent positions for education support personnel. In fact, 16,000 new positions were added this year alone,” Ruby Bernardo, President of the ACT branch in the National Capital Region, notes.

She adds: “The union did not stop at wages. Meeting quarterly, the council fast-tracks grievances, harmonises workloads, and sets national training standards, with seats reserved for ACT-nominated ESP representatives—ensuring grassroots voices are heard in national policymaking. Social dialogue has become an institutional practice.”

ACT’s sectoral bargaining panels now operate in the country’s 17 regions, addressing the issues facing teachers as well as ESP and resulting in local agreements on hazard pay and overtime compensation.

At the national level, the ACT Teachers Party-list has filed multiple bills in Congress on the welfare of education support personnel. One of these bills codifies regularisation, sets a living wage linked to the national poverty threshold, and mandates a five percent annual budget increase for education. Solidarity letters from Education International affiliates have already been delivered to the national parliamentary Committee on Civil Service.

President declares May 16th National Education Support Personnel Day

The movement reached a high point on May 15th, 2024, when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Presidential Proclamation No. 279, declaring that May 16th will be celebrated as “National Education Support Personnel Day.”

This proclamation requires all public and private schools, local government units, and national agencies to hold ceremonies, exhibitions, and dialogues honoring ESP contributions to learning outcomes. It also mandates the Department of Education to include a separate budget line for ESP recognition events in the annual General Appropriations Act.

ACT plans to use National ESP Day to launch yearly “ESP Rights Caravans” in every region, linking the celebration to the ongoing push for the full regularisation of the remaining contractual ESPs, the implementation of a ₱36,000 (€539) entry-level salary as a living wage, and the broader Go Public! Fund Education campaign.

“Before the ACT campaign, we were contract workers paid every six months,” one senior school librarian in Manila explains. “Now we are permanent, organised, and my salary has doubled. The union did not just ask for ‘support’; it fought for our rights as workers.”