P124-b package to raise salaries of state workers

SOME 1.124 million state workers will get pay hikes over the next four years under a P123.8-billion salary package approved by the House appropriations committee.

Phased salary increases will begin on July 1, 2009, and be carried out yearly after that.

The across-the-board increase is 40 to 50 percent of basic pay to make the take-home pay of government employees competitive with those in the private sector.

The President, vice president, senators and congressmen were also granted increases, and those will take effect after the 2010 elections.

The next President will receive P120,000 a month, up from P58,000 now. The vice president will get P102,000, up from P53,000, and senators and congressmen will see their salaries increased to P90,000 a month from P50,000.

”This increase is urgently needed or our state workers will not be able to weather the global crisis,” said Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, vice chairman of the House appropriations committee.

”At last, I am glad that the state workers will now be motivated more, and we hope that they will be more efficient in carrying out their jobs,” said Quirino Rep. Junie Cua, chairman of the appropriations committee.

Cua said low salaries have meant government sector workers being lost to the private sector. Lagman said some P92.2 billion was allotted for 840,951 civilian personnel that included sub-professionals (16 percent of the national government workforce, P6.5 billion) professionals (82 percent, P77.5 billion) and executives (2 percent, P8.2 billion).

A total of P31.6 billion was allocated for the 283,441 military and uniformed personnel, which brings the package for all state workers to P123.8 billion.

Lagman said at least P20 billion had been allocated in the General Appropriations Act this year to ensure the first round of increases in July.

Teachers would be given an additional P6,500 across the board to raise their starting base pay of P12,000

The increases were based on Joint Resolution 24, principally authored by House Speaker Prospero Nograles. The counterpart resolution in the Senate was filed by then Senate President Manuel Villar.

The joint resolutions were certified as urgent by President Arroyo.

“The compensation for all government personnel shall generally be comparable with those in the private sector doing comparable work in order to attract, retain and motivate a corps of competent civil servants,” Nograles said in his resolution.

As Congress granted salary increases to state workers, Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano pushed for the approval of a legislated P125 across-the-board increase for private sector workers.

At the Ayes and Nayes forum, Mariano insisted that the daily cost of living pegged at P922 was too far from the P382 minimum wage received by workers in the National Capital Region.

But Trade Union Congress of the Philippines Rep. Raymond Mendoza said workers should accept the Palace’s position that it cannot afford to grant a wage increase.

“We understand that the economy is not strong because of the crisis. But we would like to ask the government to impose a moratorium on payments to Pag-IBIG, SSS, GSIS funds until the crisis is over,” Mendoza said in the same forum.

“We welcome any legislated wage increase, but while we are awaiting it, we urge the government and the private employers to grant non-wage benefits to the workers, such as unemployment insurance, especially to those who were displaced as a result of the global crisis.”

Speaking before the National Conference of Employers yesterday, President Arroyo expanded a program, originally offered to the electronics industry, that shoulders half the minimum wage for workers who are about to be laid off so they could be retrained and rehired when the economy improves.

“I would like to reiterate for those of you who don’t want to let your workers go, who are willing to keep them and then make them work full time again when times get better, I’d like to remind you that the Labor Department is giving you the privilege of paying only half of the minimum wage if your worker will enter our training program or our scholarships,” the President said.

“We would like your workers to undergo training so that when things get better … your workers will be even more productive than they were before the global crisis.”

Under this program, the government will give transportation and living allowances to affected workers, as well as six-month training vouchers from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

Mrs. Arroyo said at least P100 million had been earmarked to finance the training and the allowances. –Christine F. Herrera with Joyce Pangco Pañares, Manila Standard Today