Filipino linguists trump Diliman rankings

The propagation of the Filipino language is apparently a harder mission in the eyes of the government than managing the University of the Philippines System, with its 11 campuses nationwide.

The chairman of the Commission on the Filipino Language, Virgilio Almario, was recompensed P1.5 million in 2013, not including the P134K received by his predecessor, Jose Santos.

Santos actually went away with P1.69 million in 2012 for his last full year in the service.

On the other hand, UP System president Alfredo Pascual, to recapitulate, was compensated P1.4 million last year.

Pascual’s pay was strangely even lower than the P1.66 million salary of the UP Diliman chancellor, Caesar Saloma, whom Pascual supervises.

Over at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, the Santa Mesa campus may be sitting on the wrong side of the tracks but its president, Emanuel de Guzman, nevertheless stands head and shoulders above both Pascual and Saloma with his P3 million annual paycheck.

The financial disparity extends all the way to the Visayas and Mindanao.

The president of the Bukidnon State University, Victor Barroso, had salary ratings nearly twice higher than the UP president, at P2.6 million a year.

Even the Cebuanos, who have long imagined suffering from the dictates of “Imperial Manila,” have reason to cock a snook against the Diliman intellectuals, with the president of the Cebu Normal University, Marcelo Lopez, getting rewarded P2.6 million last year.