1 million government workers to get P1,500 pay hike next year

The government is set to grant its more than one million personnel an across-the-board salary increase of P1,500 a month next year.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. revealed this to The STAR last week when he met with fellow Bicolano and Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chairman of the House appropriations committee at the Batasan complex in Quezon City, where House offices are located.

The two met to discuss the status of the proposed P1.126-trillion 2007 national budget and President Arroyo’s request for P10 billion in typhoon rehabilitation funds.

Andaya said he would prepare a bill covering the grant of the P1,500 salary increase and submit it to the House later next month when Congress resumes session.

He said he hoped that his former colleagues in the House and senators could approve the measure during their three-week session before adjourning for the election campaign in mid-February.

Andaya was a Camarines Sur congressman before joining the Cabinet.

There is actually a salary adjustment bill, authored by Salceda, that is pending in the House and is still being studied by a technical working group chaired by another Bicolano, Rep. Edcel Lagman, also of Albay.

However, there is strong opposition among congressmen and government personnel to the Salceda proposal because while it would grant an increase of about P100,000 to the President, lawmakers and other high-ranking officials, lowly workers would get a measly P500 to P800.

Under the proposal, President Arroyo and members of Congress would receive about P150,000 a month, up from P55,000 for Mrs. Arroyo and P45,000 for lawmakers.

Lagman told The STAR last week that low-level government personnel would not forgive members of the legislature if they approve such salary adjustment scheme.

Andaya said he was anticipating that Congress, let alone the House, may not be able to pass the Salceda bill during the short, three-week period that it would be in session before adjourning for the May 2007 election campaign.

"So we will propose the P1,500 increase and submit the bill covering it," he said.

He said he would also present later a comprehensive salary adjustment measure that would serve as an alternative to the Salceda bill.

It was Andaya’s father, the late Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Sr., who authored the first salary standardization law for government personnel in the mid-1990s. The late Andaya Sr. was House appropriations committee chairman for 11 years.

Under the law he authored, the lowest pay in government — that of a janitor or helper — was doubled from P2,000 to P4,000 a month. The basic monthly pay of public school teachers was increased from P3,000 to P8,605.