Better services from better paid public servants
With the latest upgraded salary scale, public servants – or those who work in the government service – are paid much better than their counterparts in the private sector. The last adjustment of government pay scale was in 2012. This was already during the administration of President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III when the last tranche of the third Salary Standardization Law (SSL) took effect.
So when the 16th Congress failed to pass into law the fourth round of SSL, President Aquino took it upon himself to implement the latest salary adjustments retroactively effective last January 1. The President issued Executive Order (EO) No. 201 two weeks after Congress adjourned without passing the proposed SSL 4, which would have implemented a four-year salary increase program for all government workers.
Under the proposed SSL-4 bill, public school teachers, for example, will receive P2,205 pay hike. The hiring rate for public school teachers is now P18,549 (Step 1 of Salary Grade 11). It used to be P3,000 only.
On the other hand, the President’s monthly salary will soar by more than three times to nearly P400,000. Cabinet officials, members of Congress and justices of the Supreme Court will see their pay going up three times to about P300,000.
It was during the administration of former President Corazon Aquino who signed into law the first SSL under Republic Act (RA) 6758 on August 21,1989. RA 6758 is the Revised Compensation and Position Classification System on Government. The government pay scale ranged from Salary Grade 1 (laborer-1) as the lowest paid public servant to the President who gets the highest pay with Salary Grade 33.
The review of the public sector compensation and benefits is mandated by Joint Resolution No.4, or SSL3, which provided that “a periodic review of the government’s Compensation and Position Classification System shall be conducted every three years.” It is supposed to take into account the salary competitiveness of government workers with their private sector counterparts and to adjust salaries to the country’s inflation rates, to meet changes in skills, expertise and competency requirements of the bureaucracy.
After completing the four-year pay adjustment program under SSL-3, the President’s salary went up from P60,000 to P120,000 a month that P-Noy receives currently. So as early SSL-3 was completed in 2012, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) as mandated by law, started the review process for the SSL-4.
As recommended by the DBM, SSL-4 sought to adjust basic salaries of the 1.53 million state employees and military personnel to rise by an average of 27 percent over a four-year period beginning 2015. So from 2016 to 2019, the monthly basic salary of those under Salary Grade (SG) 1 will rise to P11,068 from P9,000.
However, the approval into law of SSL-4 got stuck before the 16th Congress adjourned for the election campaign period. This after the bicameral conference committee failed to reconcile the differing provision on the indexation of the military pension to the salary increase of those in the active personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines under the Senate version of the SSL-4 bill.
The new President after P-Noy, whoever he or she would be, gets to receive the pay increase from the current P120,000 to P166,000 a month. Then in January, 2017, the Chief Executive will get about P222,000 of equivalent increase in monthly salary. On the third year, he or she will get another round of increase to bring the monthly salary to P298,000.
At the end of the SSL-4, the sitting President will be getting close to P400,000 a month in pay by 2019.
During our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last week, DBM Secretary Florencio Abad sneezed at the presidential salary in our country. Abad likened the P120,000 a month of the President’s salary to the take-home pay of a head of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company here in the Philippines. Even if it would increase to close to P400,000 a month at the end of the four-year period under SSL-4, Abad cited, it would only be comparable to the salary of a vice president of a manufacturing company here in our country.
On the other hand, according to Abad, Vice President Jejomar Binay currently receives P103,000 a month. The new Vice President whoever comes into office, he said, would start to receive P135,376 in July this year.
Abad clarified EO 201 would implement compensation adjustment for this year as an interim measure to implement the first tranche of the proposed SSL-4 until the 16th Congress would be able to approve the bill before they adjourn sine die on June 10.
P-Noy’s EO 201 granting this salary increase to national government employees would amount to P58billion additional appropriation as provided for in this year’s budget. Funds for salaries of national government personnel make up 29 percent, or one-third of the total national budget. The government is the single biggest employer in our country.
The EO also granted civilian government personnel a mid-year bonus equivalent to one month’s basic salary, and the productivity enhancement incentive worth P5,000. The salary adjustment though does not cover workers of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) that are governed by their respective charters and those in local governments.
Thus, working in the government is no longer regarded as a sacrifice. It would only be fair to expect better services from our better paid public servants, whether elected or appointed officials in government.
At the end of the SSL-4, the sitting President will be getting close to P400,000 a month in pay by 2019.
I left last night for Australia as one of the two trade media delegates from the Philippines. We were invited by the Department of Tourism (DOT) to the Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME). The two-day event will be held this week in Melbourne where meetings, events and incentives industry decision makers meet for business adventures across Australia, Asia-Pacific and the rest of the globe.
Thus, there would be no Kapihan sa Manila Bay for this week. We will resume our weekly breakfast forum at Café Adriatico in Remedios Circle in Malate, Manila on March 2, Wednesday.