House leader seeks pay hike for gov’t workers

MANILA, Philippines – A ranking leader of the House of Representatives urged Congress yesterday to consider a new round of salary increase for the more than one million government personnel.

Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., an appropriations committee vice chairman, said the government payroll would cost taxpayers P1.81 billion a day in 2014, or P660 billion for the entire year.

“Despite this, the time is ripe to study the present compensation structure in the public sector so that this early, we can project and determine future salary increases. There is no harm if Congress starts discussing a possible SSL IV,” he said.

He was referring to the Salary Standardization Law, which mandated a series of salary adjustments in the bureaucracy beginning in 1989. The latest version of the law is known as SSL III.

The law has doubled the basic pay of government workers. For instance, the monthly salary of President Aquino has gone up from P60,000 to P120,000.

Supreme Court justices, who used to receive less than P70,000 in monthly compensation, now get about P130,000, while the salary of a member of Congress has jumped from P35,000-P40,000 to P90,000, excluding allowances.

Andaya, a former budget secretary, said state personnel have been receiving yearly increases since 2006 up to last year under the salary upgrading law.

“This year is the first time that they will not be receiving a pay hike since their seven-year stretch of yearly salary adjustments. We can use this break to study when the next round can take effect,” he said.

He suggested that the House appropriations committee look into the “forward estimate of government finances in the next three to five years so we will be able to know if there is budget space for a future salary adjustment.”

“We do not know when it is feasible, as there are many needs that compete for scarce government resources, so it can be in 2017 or as early as 2015, but the important thing is that we begin preparing for it now because down the road it will eventually happen. You can call it a study now, pay hike later plan,” Andaya said.

“We should view the government’s compensation classification in its entirety because the need to adjust salaries does not exist in one profession alone but is present across the board,” he said.

He stressed the need to “evaluate pay hikes against the very important backdrop of fiscal affordability.”

“We should remember that at the end of the day it is not the government who will be footing the bill but taxpayers, for they are the real employers of government employees. If you are a government employee, it is your neighbors who make your pay slip possible,” he said.

Of the P660-billion budget for government salaries next year, P66 billion will be for the pension of retired military personnel and war veterans.

Some P464 billion will be for civilian personnel, while P128 billion will be for the salaries of active members of the military. –Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star)