House okays P1,000 allowance increase for state workers

The House of Representatives approved on third and final reading last night a uniform P1,000 increase in the monthly allowance of more than one million government personnel, including soldiers and policemen.

The chamber appropriated P13.1 billion for the increase, which is retroactive to Jan. 1 and which would bring to P2,500 the total allowances that state workers would be receiving.

Shortly after the House finally approved the bill authorizing the adjustment, Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. ordered the chamber’s secretary general to immediately transmit it to the Senate.

De Venecia said he was confident that senators would act on it quickly.

He said the chairman of the House appropriations committee and incoming budget secretary, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., deserves commendation for the expeditious approval of the bill.

It was Andaya who introduced the measure so government workers wouldn’t be affected by the delay in the passage of the proposed P1-trillion 2006 budget by Congress.

The P1,000 adjustment replaced the eight-percent upgrading that Malacañang had suggested which would have raised the basic salary. Had the Palace suggestion been followed, government personnel receiving P12,000 a month and below would receive lower than P1,000, while those receiving higher salaries would get a bigger increase.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who proposed the substitution of the eight-percent adjustment with a uniform P1,000 increase for all personnel of the bureaucracy, noted that more than 90 percent of state workers receive less than P12,000 a month.

Andaya will begin sponsoring the 2006 budget in today’s session. Next week, he is expected to take over from Budget Secretary Romulo Neri, who will return to his previous job as director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority.

Expected to replace Andaya as appropriations committee chairman is fellow Bicolano Rep. Joey Salceda, who chairs the economic affairs committee and is an occasional adviser of President Arroyo on the economy.