Western Visayas teachers level up under career plan

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

ROXAS CITY — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Education Secretary Sonny Angara led the country’s largest mass oath-taking of newly promoted public school heads and teachers under the Department of Education’s Expanded Career Progression system on Monday, April 27.

A total of 8,566 school heads and teachers from Western Visayas took their oaths at Villareal Stadium in Roxas City.

They included 2,467 from Aklan, 2,191 from Capiz, 2,005 from Iloilo, 618 from Iloilo City, 444 from Guimaras, 423 from Roxas City, 264 from Passi City, and 154 from Antique.

The event surpassed similar oath-taking activities involving 3,300 teachers and school heads in Cebu, 2,600 in Davao, and 2,100 in Eastern Visayas.

Before administering the oath, Angara said 57 of the newly promoted personnel had rendered more than 35 years of service.

In his message, Marcos said the promotions were meant to address the long-standing perception that career advancement in the public school system was slow.

“For a long time, progressing in the teaching profession has been slow. In spite of your hard work [and] competence, you would need to wait years, sometimes decades, to rise in ranks from Teacher I to Teacher III, because positions are limited,” the president said.

“Some teachers were forced to leave the classroom and the profession that they chose with passion. Because when the progress takes too long, and the opportunities are scarce, the system is not fair, and that is what the administration immediately recognized, and recognized that it had to be changed,” he added.

The Expanded Career Progression system was established through Executive Order No. 174, which was signed on June 23, 2022, to promote professional development and career advancement among public school teachers.

The system created additional teaching positions from Teacher IV to Teacher VII and expanded career pathways in classroom teaching and school administration.

It was later institutionalized through Republic Act No. 12288, or the Career Progression System for Public School Teachers and School Leaders Act, which Marcos signed on Sept. 12, 2025.

The law provides a competency-based promotion system that allows public school teachers and school leaders to advance based on merit, qualifications, and professional standards.

DepEd is targeting more than 100,000 promotions in 2026 under the Expanded Career Progression system, backed by a PHP 6.1 billion allocation for the fiscal year.