Caap employees decry P5,000 bonus despite successes
INSTEAD of receiving a pat on the back, employees of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) got a slap in the face.
Caap employees, including the agency’s Director General William Hotchkiss III, each received only P5,000 as productivity enhancement incentive (PEI), even after they had successfully addressed the local aviation industry’s “triple whammy”—international downgrades and blacklists that had hounded previous administrations.
The “triple whammy” were the loss of the country’s category 1 rating from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); the country’s inclusion on the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) list of countries with significant safety concerns, and a ban by the European Union on Philippine air carriers.
The PEI received by the Caap employees was lower than that given to Department of Transportation and Communications maintenance personnel, specifically janitors, who received at least P8,000 each.
What most Caap employees described as the P5,000 “disincentive” was given by the Governance Commission on Government-owned and -controlled corporations (GCG) four months after it directed them to return nearly P1 billion in benefits, salary increases and bonuses they had received since 2012.
Failure to comply
According to a Sept. 7 letter from the GCG addressed to Transportation Secretary Joseph Abaya and Hotchkiss, the aviation authority failed to comply with the requirements of a GCG memorandum.
The requirements included the fulfillment of at least 90 percent of fiscal year 2014 targets; compliance with the posting of the transparency seal, and compliance with the posting or publication of the citizen’s charter.
The GCG grants two forms of productivity enhancement incentive—100 percent of an employee’s basic pay or a P5,000 fixed bonus rate.
The issue of the measly PEI was raised in a recent gathering of some 100 air safety inspectors and regular employees of the Caap.
A source, who requested anonymity for lack of authority to speak on the matter, said the air safety inspectors appeared demoralized over the “disincentive” during the Sept. 10 conference.
Unfair ruling
“They were asking why all employees were only given P5,000 after all the agency has worked for and achieved,” the source told the Inquirer, referring to the FAA’s category 1 rating, the ICAO certification and the lifting of the EU ban on Philippine air carriers, all of which the Caap successfully hurdled.
He said the air safety inspectors were mostly retired commercial pilots who were responsible for overcoming the “triple whammy.”
The source said the inspectors described the GCG ruling as “unfair.”
In May, the Commission on Audit and the GCG branded as illegal and disallowed salary increases and bonuses already given to Caap employees since 2012, causing the loss of skilled people in the air traffic service and leaving some 700 persons to handle the tasks of over 1,000.
