Don’t scrap additional bonus of government workers, GMA asked

FORMER senator Ralph Recto asked Malacañang on Thursday to increase the Christmas bonus of more than a million national government employees and release the additional benefit before the end of the year.

In a statement, Recto recommended that “Malacañang should now announce if it will give an additional Christmas bonus this year in order to end the suspense and put a stop to speculations.”

He urged Palace officials to “refrain from announcing more bad news” for government employees. “Yes, the government is in a fiscal bind but it shouldn’t cancel the granting of Christmas bonus on top of the regular year-end benefits of one month pay and cash gift of P5,000.”

Recto, who recently resigned as director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), added that the total year-end bonuses, including Social Security System and Government Service Insurance System pensioners, of civilian government personnel this year will reach P17.1 billion.

He noted that allocation for military servicemen and women was pegged at P4.9 billion. Last year Recto recalled that  the government granted P10,000 as additional Christmas bonus, of which P7,000 was released by the national government and the remaining P3,000 came from agency savings.

“This year with the anemic revenue collections, it appears that this additional Christmas bonus will be scuttled,” he said. “My position is that regardless of the amount, the government should grant additional incentives without further bloating the deficit or breaking the bank.”

According to Recto, government employees could be looking forward to additional bonuses this month, especially those affected by the recent onslaught of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. “A reduced rate is better than none at all. Wag lang zero. The President can either be Mrs. Claus or Mrs. Scrooge,” he said.

Recto clarified that these benefits are for national government employees only, as local government employees’ benefits are subject to local funds while those of government-owned and -controlled corporations can be drawn from their corporate budgets. –Butch Fernandez / Reporter, Businessmirror