P40,000 bonus to Pampanga workers questioned

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—For the second time since 2010, the provincial government is granting a Christmas bonus of P40,000 to each of its 1,500 permanent and casual employees for a total of P60 million.

Governor Lilia Pineda announced this during Friday’s Employees’ Day, one of the events celebrating the 440th founding anniversary of the province, while Vice Governor Joseller Guiao shared the news in his speech at the capitol’s tribute that night to Archbishop Paciano Aniceto.

“The provision of the P40,000 bonus to our employees is due to the good fiscal management of [Pineda],” Guiao told the audience of mostly priests and capitol officials.

Guiao said the capitol has the fund to give out the bonus as it generated an excess of P1 billion from real property taxes, quarry collections and other revenues.

The provincial government’s budget for 2012 is P1.5 billion, although the share of internal revenue allotment from the national government is expected to drop due to lower revenues in 2009, he said.

But a group advocating good governance urged provincial officials to exercise prudence in giving bonuses and to explain why it is granting a huge amount to capitol employees without evaluating their work performance.

The Kapampangan Manalakaran Inc. (Kamai) estimated that P80 million, not P60 million, is being given out because the capitol has more than 2,000 permanent and casual employees.

“This is a total of P160 million for 2010 and 2011,” said lawyer Ma. Amalia Tiglao-Cayanan, Kamai spokesperson, in a statement on Monday.

Cayanan said that while the Aquino administration granted a productivity enhancement incentive (PEI) through Administrative Orders No. 4 and No. 24 in 2010 and 2011, respectively, it called on local governments to exercise prudence in the use of local funds.

The PEI, according to the administrative orders, is granted as a “reward for exceeding agency financial and operational performance targets and to motivate employee efforts towards higher productivity.”

The administrative orders said: “In determining the amount of the PEI, the sanggunian (council) shall ensure that the same is reasonable and that the expenditure will not, in any way, adversely affect the delivery of services to the public.”

But Pineda said funds of the provincial government for health, other social services and projects had not been compromised. “In fact, the capitol, through its officials and employees, has worked to bring more services to a wider number of people this year. Our employees deserve the bonus,” she said.

Cayanan said Kamai was not questioning the wisdom of granting bonuses to hardworking and deserving government employees. “In fact, we strongly support the institutionalization of systems of compensation and rewards comparable to private sector employees,” she said.

Kamai said the amount set aside for the bonus could have provided additional capital to microentrepreneurs, built classrooms and roads, helped students, and provided health insurance or health assistance to poor residents.  Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon