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View all search resultsA contract teacher and the crisis of justice
When legality becomes stratified by class, democracy collapses into oligarchy.
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A number of teachers attend an appointment ceremony as civil servants on July 5, 2023, at Tegar Beriman ground in Cibinong, Bogor regency, West Java. (Antara/Yulius Satria Wijaya)
Muhammad Hisabul Huda is just trying to survive the harsh reality of life and feed his family.
As a contract or freelance teacher in Probolinggo, East Java, he can only get Ro 5,000 (30 US cent) per hour, with a maximum of 100 hours a month. So, even if he is working like a dog the whole day, he can only get around Rp 500,000 per month. That is barely enough to cover transportation, let alone food, rent, healthcare and education.
That is why he has to do moonlighting and take any jobs to earn more money just to survive the month. When a job opened as a pendamping lokal desa, a village consultant or assistant, in a government program, he quickly applied and got the job.
He did both jobs seriously, day after day, until one day, prosecutors came knocking on his door, questioned him and put him behind bars pending trial. The accusation? Corruption. He is alleged to have caused Rp 118 million in state losses over five years simply for doing two jobs.
This story alone should force any society to confront its conscience. What kind of system criminalizes survival? Now place this tragedy beside the political realities of today’s Indonesia.
One of President Prabowo Subianto’s closest aides, Angga Raka Prabowo, holds three different key government positions simultaneously, earning nearly Rp 1 billion per month, entirely from public funds.
These positions are strategic, powerful and highly paid. Yet no prosecutor has dared to question the legality or morality of such accumulation.
