Gov’t workers’ pay hike bill reaches House plenary

Just hours after hurdling the committee, the proposed 2015 Salary Standardization Law reached the House of Representatives plenary on Wednesday.

Appropriations committee vice chair Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya sponsored the bill on the floor for second reading approval. Andaya is a former budget secretary under the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Andaya clarified the figures propagated by Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT Teachers) Rep. Antonio Tinio that public school teachers were only entitled to a P551 increase in salary per month in the four tranches of the SSL implementation.

Andaya said in the SSL, teachers would get a 30 percent increase in salary or P70,362 in additional pay after the four tranches from 2016 to 2019.

This translates to P2,162 increase in salary per month, belying Tinio’s computations, according to Andaya.

Andaya’s computations include other bonuses such as 14th month pay, performance-based bonus, and productivity-enhancement incentive, while Tinio’s computations involve only basic pay.

“Ang kabuuan po, 30 percent ang increase or P70,362 na dagdag na sweldo pagkatapos ng apat na taon. Hindi naman po siguro masama na panukala yan, that’s quite generous,” Andaya said.

Tinio in interpellating the bill stood by his figures and said the pay hike for government employees like teachers should involve basic pay and not bonuses.

He suggested using portions of the performance-based bonus, which would be worth one to two months’ salary, to increase the basic pay.

Andaya said increasing the basic salary with bonuses would subject the bonuses to tax, defeating the purpose of giving a higher take-home pay to workers.

In an interview after the committee approval, Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad said the government resorted to separating the basic pay and the bonuses because the latter were tax-exempt.

The House panel on Wednesday approved the measure just days after President Benigno Aquino III endorsed the 2015 SSL to Congress on Monday. The President backed the bill after the budget department conducted a thorough study on the merits of adjusting the salary grades of public sector employees closer to the pay of their private sector counterparts.

The House is awaiting the President’s certification of the bill as urgent to fast-track its passage from second to third and final reading. RC