About 100 teachers and education workers belonging to the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) trooped to the national office of the Department of Education (DepEd) in Pasig City yesterday, August 15, to call for the immediate scrapping of the MATATAG curriculum. They complained that the curriculum only brings excessive workload and burden which is further aggravated by the Marcos regime’s meager salary increase.

Teachers staged an Olympics-themed protest in front of the department. A teacher symbolically lifted a cardboard barbell with the words “MATATAG” written on it while another punched the air with large gloves that read “excessive workload” and “low salaries.” After the performance, the “athletes” were awarded with medals symbolizing ₱50 coins.

These symbols describe the difficult challenges brought about by the MATATAG curriculum and the recent Marcos regime’s meager salary increases. MATATAG was launched in August 2023 by the now resigned DepEd secretary Sara Duterte and implemented this academic year (2024-2025).

“This MATATAG curriculum has turned our schools into arenas of suffering. We are weighed down by overwhelming workloads and shortened time allotment for learning areas,” ACT Chairperson Vladimer Quetua said. Teachers are being forced to juggle more students and take on tasks that pull them away from teaching.

They said they are expected to implement a curriculum built on shaky ground, lacking evidence-based learning assessments and genuine and democratic consultation with teachers and stakeholders. “We cannot stand by and watch as our education system sink further into crisis,” Quetua said.

Ruby Bernardo, ACT National Capital Region Union President, said “Teachers and education workers, much like our athletes who bring honor to our nation, are not give the recognition they deserve but with mere token gestures.” She emphasized that the salary increase given by Marcos is extremely far from the sector’s call for a fair entry-level salary of ₱50,000 for teachers and ₱33,000 for Salary Grade 1 employees.

On August 2, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued Executive Order (EO) 64 which increased salaries by a measly ₱530 increase for Salary Grade 1 Step 1 employees or ₱26 per day.