‘Workers, not president, deserve pay increase’

MANILA, Philippines - Rep. Carlos Zarate of party-list group Bayan Muna slammed yesterday the proposal to increase the monthly salary of the president by more than three-fold while ordinary government employees would receive a smaller adjustment.

Zarate said the proposal would only increase the disparity of salaries between high-ranking bureaucrats and the rank-and-file employees of the government.

The public has scored the widening gap of salaries, benefits, allowances and other perks that top government officials receive, he added.

“It is not the high-ranking bureaucrats who need a salary increase. It is the millions of common employees, contractual and ‘job order’ personnel of the government who need it,” he said.

Zarate said the existing disparity on the salary and benefits of high ranking officials and ordinary workers makes these top bureaucrats oblivious of the pains ordinary employees and workers go through to make ends meet.

The lawmaker said among state workers who should receive better compensation are doctors and nurses.

Under a Department of Budget and Management circular, government nurses get the same pay as public school teachers. They have the same pay grade – Salary Grade 11, which pays a minimum of P18,549 and a maximum of P19,887 a month.

Party-list group Ang Nars has sued Budget Secretary Florencio Abad to compel him to follow the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, which mandates that state nurses be entitled to Salary Grade 15 with basic pay ranging from P24,887 to P26,868.

Zarate said Bayan Muna has filed two bills that seek to upgrade the compensation of government doctors and nurses to help mitigate the migration of health workers.

Aside from low-ranking state workers, he said employees in the private sector also need a salary increase.

“It is an abomination that we speak of giving the president a huge salary increase while our workers languish in a minimum wage that is way below the actual cost of living,” he said.

He added that a household with six members in Metro Manila depending on just one minimum wage earner to survive would be unable to live decently.

Sen. Ralph Recto has proposed that the planned new round of government salary increase be focused on those holding Salary Grades 11 to 13.

He said most state workers, including teachers, policemen and soldiers, are clustered around these three pay levels.

Under the salary increase plan revealed by Abad, high-ranking officials will get a bigger adjustment than low-level personnel.

The president’s present monthly salary of P120,000 is about “30 percent of the market” and could be increased by more than three-fold to P400,000 to bring it at par with private sector pay for a similar job.