ANNUAL REPORT

THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT
by: Dr. Gilbert T. Sadsad

“Bayani ka, gurong Pilipino. Ang PPSTA, kumakalinga sa iyo!”  This corporate motto of ours has come a long way, echoed across the seventeen (17) regions of the country. But the question is, for the first two (2) years reckoned from our freedom from conservatorship, how did we, your present Board, fare?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am indeed extremely honored to greet you with a very good morning today in this momentous occasion, the 45^th National Representative Assembly of our beloved Association, the foremost organization of professional public school teachers and public education personnel in the Philippines. Being your President for the last two (2) years has been a great privilege and yet a humbling experience.

You see, we are all educators and educator-leaders. As such, we all have that technical know-how in the delivery of quality education to our learners or for the administrators, in running schools or offices, but being at the helm of a corporation, is another story. It involves subjecting yourself to continuous learning process on how to run the Association based on the tenets of good corporate governance. Hence, I thank, firstly, the Lord above for the wisdom and strength to carry this gargantuan of a responsibility, secondly, you our dear teacher-leaders and the general membership for the trust and confidence, thirdly, my colleagues in the Board of Trustees for all the support and the positive synergy as we take on our duties and responsibilities in the organization, and of course, last but definitely not the least, the PPSTA Management and the rest of the employees.

Our partnership and collaborations led to a commanding financial portfolio of P9.14 B in total assets, members’ equity of P3.97 B and net income before legal reserves of P434 M. With these and all others, let us give ourselves our warmest applause.

It is our hope and prayer that with all of us working together and with God’s grace, our PPSTA will continue to soar high and serve the very purpose of its existence as the foremost ally of public school educators.

My fellow teacher-leaders, allow me now to render the President’s Report for 2024. Of course, some of which are continuing programs and activities which were started by our predecessors such as our continuous representation in both Houses of Congress during legislation of bills intended for education and educators and our strong participation in various committees of the Department of Education (DepEd). But for emphasis, I wish to elaborate on our remarkable initiatives:

1. Strengthened ties with international teachers’ organizations particularly, the ASEAN Council of Teachers+1 (ACT+1) and Education International (EI)

Conventions initiated by these organizations are great avenues to further enhance and enrich the teaching skills and knowledge of the participants in the field of education as they get to expose themselves to various best practices in other countries.

Last July, I had the opportunity to represent PPSTA in the 10^th World Congress of Education International in Buenos Aires, Argentina with the theme, “Growing our Unions, Elevating our Professions, Defending Democracy”.

The World Congress is the highest decision-making body of EI. It brings together leaders of education organizations from around the world to collectively lead the global education movement.

As regards the ASEAN Council of Teachers + Korea or the ACT+1 which is the favorite of most of us, we wish to announce that PPSTA has accepted the hosting of the 2025 Convention of the council. Based on the leaders’ meeting held last September 7 this year, it was initially agreed that the convention will be held at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu on September 19-21, 2025. The next leaders’ meeting where convention matters will be finalized shall be held in March next year. We shall issue a corresponding circular once the details are completely established.

With this, as early as now, we solicit your full support to the event especially our chapters in Region 7 – Central Visayas in order to ensure the success of the convention.

2. Participation in Congressional Hearings of Bills for Teachers

 We continue to secure representation in the hearings of both the Senate and the House of Representative relative to bills affecting teachers. Right now, we afford more focus and monitoring on the movement of the bill regarding career progression for public school teachers and school leaders as we have to admit that compared with other countries, we offer the best entry level salary grades but we lag in terms of progression.

Data shows that it takes fifteen (15) years on the average for a Teacher 1 to become Teacher 3. We are confident that once this bill is passed into law, we can address the long-standing challenges in teacher promotion and career development. Our National Trustee from Region 12, Trustee Eric Balancio, is PPSTA’s official representative in all hearings on the bill.

3. Revival and Reinstitutionalization of the PPSTA Search

 The PPSTA Search was on a hiatus since 2013. And we are extremely grateful that we were able to successfully revive and reinstitutionalize it this year. Last night was a testament of our deep commitment on this worthwhile endeavor. We hope that in 2025, all regions will take active participation in the Search as we have stand out teachers and school heads everywhere. We have to commend them in the best possible way that we could. Further, we are also looking at the possibility of adding other categories just like before such as non-teaching personnel and best local chapter.

4. Empowerment of Regional Sub-Offices

 We have thirty-one (31) sub-offices located in strategic areas across the country. Twenty-nine (29) of which are capable already of processing loan applications. By next year, our target is to transfer certain claim transactions from the Main Office to the sub-offices. We will prioritize claims for hospitalization daily income benefit under the MRBS+ and claims under the Old MRBS.

Moreover, we will expedite the establishment of additional offices in roughly 40 provinces.

5. Roving PPSTA Drives

 A Roving Team is like a one-stop-shop of PPSTA that goes to the grassroots and handles onsite presentations about the Association as well as its plans and programs, queries and processing of membership and loan applications. As regards onsite processing however, we wish to manifest that application approvals can only be made once cleared by a DepEd verifier for all DepEd personnel as required under the DepEd APDS rules.

     Should you want roving activities in your area, please do not hesitate to contact our Marketing Team through its Head, Mr. Dillon “Bong” Arante.

6. Intensification of Sariling Sikap Loan Program

 Members from all regions may now avail the maximum loanable amount under the Sariling Sikap Loan Program or SSL Program in the amount of P500,000.00 under a longer maximum paying period of five (5) years, subject to certain qualifications and terms to establish capacity to pay by the borrower. Moreover, we are proud to announce that our interest rates are relatively lower than other entities as our contractual interest rates per annum are set at 6.5% for 1-year term, 7% for 2-year term, 7.5% for 3-year term, 8% for 4-year term and 8.5% for 5-year term.

7. The Bulk Pesonet Payment System of Eastwest Bank

For the convenience of member-borrowers, we have forged a partnership with Eastwest Bank for the utilization of their Bulk Pesonet Payment System. This allows us to ensure that the proceeds of loan transactions completed at or before 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon will be credited to the member-borrowers’ elected bank accounts within the day, free of charge, while loan transactions completed beyond the cut-off time will be credited the following business day.

 

8. Automatic Monthly Generation of Solicitor’s Honorarium

 If you will note, existing PPSTA members are entitled to solicitor’s honorarium for every recruited member at the rate of P100.00 for the New Mutual Aid System (NMAS) and P150.00 for the Mutual Retirement Benefit System Plus (MRBS+). Before, a solicitor’s honorarium is released only upon request by the concerned member-solicitor. We have changed this. The Management generates solicitor’s honorarium and releases the same on a monthly basis. I wish however to clarify that a member recruiter will only be entitled to this honorarium upon the first deduction of the premium payment in the salary of the recruit.

From January to October this year, we have released a total of P342,150.00 solicitor’s honorarium with solicitors from the Bicol Region leading the list at P144,900.00 followed by solicitors from BARMM at P59,000.00. Tied at the third spot are solicitors from Regions 2 and 10 at P28,500.00.

9. Benepisyo Protektado Program of 2023

 One of our biggest initiative last year is the implementation of “Benepisyo Protektado Program of 2023” or BPP which we continue to implement until now. It is actually an in-house credit life insurance program crafted to provide credit life insurance (CLI) for all salary-deducted loan programs of the Association, particularly the following:

• Sariling Sikap Loan
• Calamity Loan
• Educational Loan

BPP is provided at no cost on the part of our member-borrowers and is intended to pay-off members’ outstanding salary-deducted loan in case of their untimely demise during the loan term. Through this, they can be assured of their full benefits under the mutual benefit programs so long as their membership thereto remains active at death and they do not have arrears in premium or unpaid certificate/equity loan.

10. PPSTA Buildings

All of PPSTA’s 5 Buildings are several decades old already. To determine their structural integrity and for the peace of mind of everyone especially the occupants, we subjected all these buildings to Structural Assessment/Investigation. The results established the fact that generally, they are structurally safe but we need to have them retrofitted in order to align with the Building Code and other laws and ordinances.

Our priority right now is Building 2, our Main Building. We are just checking on the plans as prepared by our contractor but we’re looking at the conduct of the bidding process within the 1st quarter of next year.

Once we start the works, our office operations will be temporarily transferred to our Building 5. We project a turnaround time of one (1) year given all the needed construction works.

About Building 5, it was previously leased out to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) consists of more than 10,000 square meters.  Instead of spending large sum of money for its retrofitting, we are looking into the possibility of establishing a partnership with a developer for a Build-Operate-Transfer Scheme. If you know of a developer who is interested on this agreement, please feel free to discuss the same with our General Manager.

Retrofitting and construction works for other buildings are to follow suit once we start at Building 2 as we have variables to consider like the existence of tenants covered by lease contracts.

11. Free One (1) Year Life Insurance for Regional Directors, Assistant Regional Directors, Schools Division Superintendents and Assistant Schools Division Superintendent

 One important item in our 2024-2028 strategic framework is to strengthen our relationship with DepEd especially now that we are in the process of maximizing our membership generation potential. But of course, we can only have this if we have good relationship with DepEd officials especially those in the grassroots. As a mechanism to start this off, we started to offer free one (1) year life insurance coverage in the amount of P120,000.00 for ALL Regional Directors, Assistant Regional Directors, Schools Division Superintendents and Assistant Schools Division Superintendents.

12. Educational Assistance Program

 Subject to established terms and conditions, the program provides opportunities to deserving teacher-members in the furtherance of their studies for their professional growth and development.

13. PPSTA Kaisa sa Brigada Eskwela

 Launched during the 70^th Anniversary Celebration of the Association in 2017, the program was crafted to augment the existing resources of DepEd for the annual Brigada Eskwela. It is intended to extend resources, financial or otherwise, to deprived, depressed and underserved public schools across the country on a yearly basis.

14. Grant of Calamity Loan

 Lately, most parts of the country have been stricken by successive natural calamities. To augment the financial resources of affected teacher-members, we have offered the Calamity Loan Program with P30,000.00 maximum loanable amount, payable for a maximum loan term of two (2) years and subject to a contractual interest rate of only 5% per annum computed using the diminishing balance method of amortization which will bring us to an equivalent nominal interest rate of 2.73% for one (1) year term and 2.65% for two (2) year term.

Calamity loan applications must be filed within three (3) months from the declaration of a state of calamity in the applicants’ respective areas.

Of course, the grant of this loan is subject to terms and conditions that will ensure collection of payments as part of our fiscal management protocol.

Further, the Management has been authorized to immediately grant calamity loan in future cases of calamities.

15. Free Insurance Coverage of P 25,000.00 for Teacher-Members Who Serve During Election

Teacher-members who serve as Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) or Supervisory Officers during elections are guaranteed with a free life insurance coverage of P25,000.00. This free insurance is of course, on top of their life insurance coverage under their PPSTA plan/s.

Last December 3, the Board had a special meeting in light of the urgent call of the Honorable Education Secretary to implement moratorium on collection of loan payments for DepEd covered personnel. After due deliberations, the Board decided to heed the call with the intention to ease the burden of those affected by the typhoon and help them navigate their transition to recovery. As formal advice to you regarding the matter, the General Manager, by authority of the Board of Trustees, issued Membership Guideline No. 06-2024. We wish to emphasize that unlike other entities, PPSTA does not impose additional charges, penalties, or interest on the outstanding loan balance during the moratorium period.

As regards the New Mutual Aid System (NMAS) which replaced the Mutual Aid System 65 in 2016 as our basic plan for new members, to be candid about it, membership with the plan is until age 65 only unlike your membership in the Old Mutual Aid System (Old MAS) and the Mutual Aid System 65 (MAS65). Succinctly, if you are an NMAS member, your membership stops once you go past 65 years old. Please take note that the PPSTA By-Laws provides that membership in the mutual aid system is obligatory on all PPSTA members. With this, we have discussed and referred to our Actuary the proposed Optional Golden Life Plan which will ensure the continuous membership of NMAS members to PPSTA even if they are already beyond the age of 65. We will issue a circular regarding this once the terms and conditions of the plan are organized.

I take this opportunity to inform you as well of our asset in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte which we consider as “idle” as the same is unproductive and yet, we are obligated to pay its yearly taxes. Based on the appraisal report of Royal Asia, the current market value of the property is P130.00 per square meter. But before the end of last year, we were able to sell a 10.6 portion of the property to EL Development and Construction Group at the rate of P550.00 per square meter. With EL’s entry, we foresee the transformation of a barren area to an economically boosted one as their development is for social housing. And hence, the Board resolved to pass a resolution increasing the price of the property to P1,000.00 per square meter for the purchase of all its remaining portions.

Ladies and gentlemen, we feel the need to dispose the property via a sale at the soonest possible time so we can make use of the purchase price to fund our other projects like acquisition of additional real property and to avoid the remaining portions of the land being encroached further by the government. If you will note, I have reported during last year’s NRA that both the National Government and the Local Government were able to acquire portions thereof in the earlier years for the construction of roads and bridges. It is for this reason that we are claiming just compensation from the City of Laoag in the amount of P12 M.

My dear brothers and sisters, what we do in PPSTA is always for the common good of the members and the best welfare of our beloved Association. In fact, the income we derive from our operations are translated into worthwhile projects, programs, advocacies and activities for all of us as PPSTA’s stakeholders.

We have committed ourselves to serve and protect the organization and we implore your aid. Earlier, the General Manager reported on our attrition rate. She stressed the need to boost our membership generation initiatives as PPSTA thrives by the number. We hope that we all do our shares in enriching our membership portfolio. When we do, we do not only help the mother chapter but moreso our respective local and regional chapters because for those unaware, PPSTA gives back to us through our regional and local honorarium computed at 1% and 3.5%, respectively, of the remittances received by the office for the members’ basic plan from your respective divisions and regions.

In fact, from January-October this year, we have released an aggregate amount of P6.484 M for chapter honorarium, P4.749 M of which were for local chapter honorarium while P1.735 M were for regional chapter honorarium.

With this, I wish to end my report with a challenge for all of us, the challenge to wage a nationwide membership enlistment campaign with the ultimate objective of sharing PPSTA’s benefits and services to the rest of our colleagues in the profession. We must correct the impression that PPSTA exists for loans because it is clearly not. We may operate a loan facility to aid financially distressed members but we are FOREMOST, an association with a mission to advance the interest and welfare of our fellow teachers and the country’s education system.

Thank you very much and good morning!

THE GENERAL MANAGER’S REPORT
by: Atty. Marilyn “Gie” DV. Gallanosa

Distinguished guests and members of the 45^th National Representative Assembly (NRA) of the Philippine Public School Teachers Association (PPSTA), a very pleasant morning!

At the outset, I wish to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude for the continuing trust and confidence reposed in me by the President, the National Board of Trustees, the National Representative Assembly and of course, the general membership. Thank you so much.

As the duly appointed PPSTA General Manager, I stand before you today taking on the duty incumbent upon me as such, that is, to present PPSTA’s Statement of Financial Affairs based on the audited financial statement as of December 31, 2023 with comparative figures for four (4) years back. In addition, I will also touch on the interim financial report for this year. To clarify, the audited financial statement for 2024 will only be available after the audit examination by an external auditor which can only start the job after the close of the current fiscal year.

As to PPSTA’s total assets, from Php7.23 B in 2019, the figure ballooned to    Php9.14 B as of the end of December last year, an increase of almost Php2 B. The two major components of our assets are guaranty fund and investments at Php2.64 B and the biggest at Php4.64 B are our loan receivables. In the interim financial report, our total assets as of September 30, 2024 increased to        Php9.49 B.

PPSTA’s total liabilities as of December 2023 stood at Php5.17 B which is lower by about Php49 M than the figure registered as of the same cut-off in 2022 in the amount of Php5.21 B. A large chunk of our liability is for our legal reserves amounting to Php4.72 B. Claims and retirement benefit payables stood at Php2.54 M while retirement benefit obligation registered the figure of Php29 M. Our total liabilities based on our interim financial report as of September 30, 2024 amounted to Php5.18 B, lower than Php17M as compared to the figures registered as of the same cut-off in 2023.

Members’ Equity or the excess of total assets against total liabilities rose from Php3.46 B in 2022 to Php3.97 B in 2023. The continuous increase in members’ equity since 2018 is indicative of PPSTA’s good business and financial management despite some global economic and fiscal setbacks through the years.

PPSTA’s revenues are derived from insurance/policy premia, interest from loan receivables, investments and building rentals. At the end of 2023, PPSTA generated a total of Php1.06 B revenues which is Php34 M higher than the total revenues as of end of 2022 at Php1.02 B. In 2020 and 2021, we failed to hit that Php1 B mark in revenues but this should be acceptable considering that these are peak years of the covid pandemic. As of September 30, 2024, our total revenues amounted to Php791.10 M.

While it is good to note that our revenues continue to increase for the last two (2) years, I wish to invite special attention to the dwindling figures of our premium income which indicates our lagging membership portfolio. The Board and the Management have put in place several worthwhile membership generation initiatives and we need your help in carrying them out. Let us not forget that our PPSTA thrives by the number. The greater our number, the greater the Association. Our objective is to have our mutual benefit programs stand on their own independent of our loan operations.

For our total expenses in 2023 composed of benefit payments and operating as well as administrative costs, we registered the amount of Php629 M, Php411 M of which were spent for benefit payments while Php218 M were spent for operating and administrative expenses. As of September 30, 2024, we registered total expenses of Php446.11 M.

Compared with the previous years where we concentrated on strengthening our financial portfolio, our increased expense is mainly attributed to our aggressive implementation of programs, projects and activities that will benefit our local chapters and the general membership such as the annual holding of the NRA, strengthened representation and participation in international teachers’ events, improvement of our computer infrastructures, and the likes.

Going further, our net income before legal reserves was recorded at Php434 M in 2023 indicating an increase of Php21 M from the figure of Php413 M in 2022.

PPSTA’s loan operations is the major key contributor in the continuously increasing net worth of the Association. As shown in the graphical representation, the accumulated Sariling Sikap Loan Funds as of 2023 was at an imposing figure of Php4.71 B. As reported last year, our loan operations actually sustain the operations of our mutual benefit programs. And hence, I wish to emphasize our need to join hands and work altogether to make them self-sustaining by increasing of course, the number of the planholders or members. As they say, none of us is better than all of us!

Thank you very much and mabuhay ang PPSTA at ang Gurong Pilipino!