House set to approve P1,500 wage hike

The House of Representatives will approve the proposed P1,500 across-the-board salary increase for the more than one million government workers when Congress resumes session later this month.

"We will approve it. I see no problem in passing the wage hike bill for government personnel," Majority Leader Prospero Nograles told The STAR yesterday.

Nograles said as soon as the measure is filed and the appropriate committee endorses it, he would schedule it for plenary deliberations.

For his part, Minority Leader Francis Escudero (Sorsogon) said he and his opposition colleagues would join the majority in fast-tracking the approval of the wage bill.

"We can even increase it, if the majority will agree," he said.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. has said he intends to submit the measure to the House when Congress resumes its session on Jan. 22.

Andaya 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 a 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 has told The STAR 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 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.