Long overdue

During hard times any help is most welcome whether or not the motive of the government in extending it is again another gimmick to win "pogi points". That P10.8 billion released by Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya, Jr. for the bonus and gifts to over a million government workers will undoubtedly be appreciated by the recipients. But most of the time there is a big and somewhat unbridgeable gap between the press release and the actual implementation of the supposedly laudable governmental action profusely reported in the media. In October last year, the government also announced that it has issued a circular to the Budget Secretary to release P1 billion for the payment of the Cost of Living, Amelioration and Equity Allowances (COLA, AA, EA) of all government employees including those in government owned and controlled corporations that were unjustly and erroneously withheld from 1989 to 1999. Up to now however more than six months after that announcement of budget release, thousands of government workers still have to be paid their promised allowances in arrears for more than 15 years!

Actually a controversy arose regarding these allowances because of the Salary Standardization Law (SSL). Prior to the law’s implementation these allowances were being paid to government workers. But when the DBM implemented the same in November 1989 under DBM Circular CCC 10, payment of the allowances was stopped because the DBM considered them already integrated in the increased standardized salaries of the employees.

On August 12, 1998 however, the Supreme Court in the case of De Jesus vs. COA, G.R. 109023 declared that DBM CCC 10 is ineffective and void because it was not duly published. In said case the SC ruled that DBM CCC 10 "tends to deprive government workers of their allowances and additional compensation sorely needed to keep body and soul together. At the very least, before said circular…may be permitted to substantially reduce their income, the government officials and employees concerned should be apprised and alerted by the publication of the subject circular in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines". In this case the SC clearly ruled that pending publication of the circular, government employees should still be paid the allowances they were entitled to.

This SC ruling is jurisprudence on the matter and considered part of the law of the land. But several government offices and agencies continue to ignore them. So on September 6, 2005, in the case of PPA vs. COA, G.R. 160396, the SC clarified and categorically stressed that "the failure to publish DBM-CCC 10 meant that the COLA, AA (and EA) were not effectively integrated into the standardized salaries of the (PPA employees) as of July 1, 1989. The integration became effective only on March 16, 1999 (when the DBM circular was finally published). Thus in between those dates they were still entitled to receive those allowances".

The SC has already laid down the law of the case and has even reiterated and clarified the same. But so many government agencies continue to defy these rulings. Instead they use the slow wheels of justice by still forcing their employees to pass through the long and tedious route of similar court litigations raising the same issues already resolved with finality by the SC. They even waste precious government funds to defray the expenses of litigation just to deprive their government employees of what is rightly due them according to the SC itself.

To be sure there are several government offices and agencies which have already paid those long overdue allowances in arrears since 1989. But two government-owned and controlled corporations are defiantly holding out and stubbornly refusing to pay their employees the said allowances. Instead of using their funds for the payment of those allowances they spend it to defray the expenses of litigations that prolong the agony and the sufferings of their employees. And they are pointing to the DBM as the reason for their continued refusal. This is the plight of the 1800 employees of Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) and the more than 181 employees of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC). Many of them have reached retirement age and are in the twilight of their life. Others have suffered serious illnesses and a few have gone to their graves without the least bit enjoying the fruits of their faithful and dedicated government service.

The long suffering employees are still hoping that the heads of these agencies will have a change of heart and reconsider their hard-line but untenable position. But the most ideal move is still on the part of Secretary Andaya, Jr. whose office is allegedly the cause of all this unjust deprivation. Let him prove that his announcements of assistance to the government workers are beyond press releases or political propaganda.

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