UP workers stage rally over pay

Some 200 employees of the state-owned University of the Philippines (UP) yesterday staged a protest rally to demand for a higher Christmas bonus and back payment of their cost of living allowance (COLA).

Buboy Cabrera, chair of the All- UP Workers Union that spearheaded the rally, said the state university must resume paying the P7,000 cash gift employees they used to receive from 1997-1998 under former UP President Emil Javier.

The employees are set to get a P2,500 Christmas bonus this year.

Cabrera said that in 1999, under incumbent UP president Francisco Nemenzo, the employees received P5,000, which was further reduced to half in the year 2000. "We don’t know the reason (for the reductions)," Cabrera said.

When Nemenzo faced the protesting employees who gathered around the UP Oblation, Cabrera said Nemenzo "promised to give more than P2,500 but did not commit anything regarding the P7,000" demand.

Cabrera added that the UP administration has yet to give a "categorical statement" if the university will pay the employees their COLA.

Employees got hold of a copy of Department of Budget Management (DBM) budget circular No. 2001-03 dated Nov. 12, 2001 issued by Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin regarding the inclusion of allowances and COLA in employees’ salaries. – Nikko Dizon