BSP execs still highest paid in gov’t – COA

Executives of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) have again dominated the Commission on Audit (COA)’s list of highest paid government officials.

Based on COA’s “Report on Salaries and Allowances” or ROSA, six of the top 10 officials who received the heftiest pay in 2018 were from the BSP.

Retained in the top spot was the late BSP governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. with total pay of P21.047 million from P14.92 million in 2017.

Espenilla died of cancer on Feb. 23 this year at the age of 60. He was replaced by former budget secretary Benjamin Diokno.

Second on the list was Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) president and chief executive officer Cecilia Borromeo

with a total pay of P15.803 million from P12.462 million in 2017.

Borromeo snatched the spot from BSP deputy governor for monetary and economics Diwa Guinigundo, whose total pay of P14.411 million (from P13.502 million in 2017) relegated him to third spot previously occupied by Borromeo.

BSP deputy governor for resource management Maria Almasara Cyd Tuaño-Amador took fourth spot from Solicitor General Jose Calida, who slid to sixth place.

Amador received a total pay of P13.867 million from P10.157 million in 2017, while Calida took home P12.469 million from P10.917 million in 2017.

In fifth place was BSP deputy governor for financial supervision Chuchi Fonacier with a total pay of P13.504 million, a hefty increase from P8.663 million in 2017 when she placed 13th on the list.

Landing in seventh spot was BSP assistant governor for financial market operations Ma. Ramona Gertrudes Santiago with P11.322 million from P9.239 million the previous year.

Making the biggest leap was Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Jesus Clint Aranas who landed eighth from 1,657th place in 2017.

For 2018, Aranas took home a total of P11.1 million from P1.679 million in 2017 when he was a deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for 10 months and GSIS Board of Trustees member for just over a month.

President Duterte had appointed Aranas to the GSIS only in November 2017, replacing Francisco Duque III who was appointed as health secretary.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin landed in ninth spot with a total pay of P10.919 million from P6.814 million in 2017 when he placed 22nd on the list.

In 10th spot in the 2018 list was BSP assistant governor for International monetary affairs and surveillance Wilhelmina Mañalac with P10.888 million from P9.277 million in 2017 when she was seventh.

A total of 8,625 officials from 989 national government agencies, government-owned and controlled corporations, state universities and colleges and water districts were included in the 2018 ROSA list.

Excluded in the report were elected government officials such as the president, senators and congressmen.