“How much is the interest?” How many months to pay? “What are the requirements needed”. These are some of the questions that teacher would ask if they are interested to avail of the loan. What’s the reason behind this?
It’s a fact that the good old days when the true value of a peso was 100% its face value was already gone. Its purchasing power was high. With a hundred pesos bill the housewives take it to the market and go back home with a basket full of food stuffs that make four to five meals for an average family size.
Those were days when the centavo was still a respected part of the pesos. The centavo had high intrinsic value then for it could buy such useful items as pencil, pad paper, candiess and many other items that cost fifty or more times higher these days.
At that time the salary of the classroom teacher was only P200 a month. The amount was considered handsome pay during those days and was adequate to provide the teachers and his family with a decent living in the community.
Today, times have changed greatly while it is true that teachers now receive a five digit salary, The amount still could hardly meet the basic needs of the teachers and his family like food, clothing and shelter.
This situation in the teacher’s life compels our teachers to go into borrowing. They borrow loans from almost every money lending institution like GSIS, PAG-IBIG, MANILA TEACHERS , COCOLIFE, BRIDGE and credit unions. Other borrows from loan sharks who are ever present in their respective communities.
Teachers borrow loans to augment the meager salary they receive. According to statistics, to be able to live adequately these days an average size family must at least have income of no less than P20,000.00 a month.
Other reasons why our teachers borrow loans is that they need to finance a family project or to finance the education of children who is studying in college. Nowadays if the poor teacher has no source of income other than his salary he cannot send his children to college. If you happen to talk to a teachers who has a son or daughter who finished a college degree, he would tell you that the education of his child was made possible with the loan from GSIS, PAG-IBIG, MANILA TEACHERS, COCOLIFE or from the bank. He may even tell you that some little sideline greatly helped him in the education of his children. In addition to that, some of teachers nowadays avail the housing loan at PAG-IBIG and GSIS. Additional burden if they need to pay for the ARREARS. They have no choice but to avail the said loan to have a decent house to live in.
It is hoped that amore comprehensive and more realistic salary increase for teachers will be enacted soon by our lawmakers in order to alleviate the poor economic living condition of the thousands of teachers throughout the country.
By: Judith J. Adrados | Tearcher III | Pilar Elementary School | Pilar Bataan
