The costs of having a President Duterte
PERHAPS unknown to the public, Rodrigo Duterte and the highest government officials are quietly enjoying huge salary increases. Yes, they’re rewarding themselves in the face of hardships caused by their programs and despite their pleas for the public to tighten their belt even further.
Yes, folks. While Malacañang and its flunkey lawmakers accuse UP students of purportedly wasting taxpayer money for joining anti-dictatorship protests, Duterte and his ilk are enjoying undeserved and immoral salary increases every year until 2019.
Around this time last 2017, Duterte’s basic monthly salary grew from 1165,752 to 1222,278.
As a news report quite interestingly stated: “In six months, (Duterte’s) pay jumped to almost twice that of his predecessor, former president Benigno Aquino III, who received 1120,000 a month.”
Duterte’s salary increase won’t stop at 1222,278. His salary went up this January, 2018, to 1298,083. He will welcome a more prosperous 2019 with yet another increase which will raise his monthly salary to 1399,739!
Senate President Koko Pimentel and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez are also getting salary increases despite all the problems they cause or refuse to solve. In 2017, their salaries went up from about 1135,376 to as high as 1198,255.
They also welcomed 2018 with fatter wallets. Their pay now ranges from 1233,857 to 1264,721. Next year it would be in the neighborhood of between 1307,365 and 1353,470.
How about the “best and brightest” in the Duterte Cabinet, other Cabinet rank officials, senators like Win Gatchalian and Dick Gordon, and congressmen who are dancing to the ChaCha?
Their basic salaries increased to a range of 1152,325-1169,357 in 2017, and 1198,168-1223,950 this 2018. Next year, their pay would be from 1257,8091295,191.
The Duterte regime should thank the previous Dilawan president’s Executive Order (EO) No. 201 which provides for a four-year basic pay upgrading in the bureaucracy. The President should also thank himself for not repealing this presidential fiat.
Then we cannot forget that these obscene salaries of the highest government officials are also set to rise even higher – thanks to Duterte’s unfair tax cuts for the oligarchs and the wealthy like him. TRAIN gave income tax cuts across the board, remember?
The news report I’m citing here clarifies that “the four-year salary upgrading program covers all government workers, including soldiers and policemen, and personnel of state corporations and local government units.”
Whether the salary increases under EO 201 would be on top of the recently announced pay hikes for the implementors of Oplan Tokhang, our lawmakers and this “tapang at malasakit” government must explain.
How about the lowest paid government employees who desperately need and justly demand economic relief? Salary Grade 1 salaries will only rise by paltry amounts. From 19,000 in 2015, to 19,478 in 2017, to 110,510 this 2018 and then to 111,068 in 2019.
Public school teachers who comprise the bulk of all government employees will only get an annual 1551.25 salary increase. This is way below the just demand of our teachers.
Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson who could move a volcano and Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy who appears to specialize on chismis purportedly from magtataho vendors meanwhile will get far higher salary increases a public school teacher or utility worker could only dream of enjoying.
All told, Duterte’s salary will be “more than three times the rate received by Aquino by the time the upgrading program is finished in 2019” but the basic pay of the lowest-paid employee will go up only by 23 percent.
Duterte is also allowed under the law to charge all his expenses against taxpayer funds. This, despite his hiding his bank accounts from public scrutiny and refusing to admit perhaps hundreds of millions in undeclared and unexplained wealth.
And with Chacha, nothing prevents the Duterte supermajority from granting themselves and Duterte more salary increases and more opportunities for self-enrichment. They’ve already proposed to exempt themselves from paying income taxes for starters.
The fascists are fattening themselves up from undeserved salary increases and from corruption. The numbers are piling up and they all add up in the people’s ledgers.
As young Filipinos prepare for walkouts on February 23 , and as we respond to the Movement Against Tyranny’s call for massive protests on February 25, let us not be fooled by Duterte’s photo-ops and antics about his alleged suffering and sacrifice. Neither should we be derailed by his factotums’ claims that UP students are wasting taxpayer money.
Because, after everything is accounted for, to protest is more than justified. And UP students are proven right, many times over. The costs of having a Duterte is more obscene than his foul mouth.