FINDING ANSWERS
At the outset, let me state that I’m all for increasing the salary of our dedicated and hardworking civil servants.
For those who toil honestly by the sweat of their brow, who serve the general public well and sometimes beyond the call of duty, who put into their work much more than what they get paid for, just so they can get a sense of fulfillment in doing their share towards nation-building, a pay hike is what they truly deserve.
Thus, President Duterte’s signing last week of the Salary Standardization Law – which grants around 1.5 million government workers yearly salary increases in four tranches starting January, 2020, up to 2023 – is a welcome development.
The increases in basic salaries would have a weighted average of 23.24 percent, with government employees in Salary Grades (SG) 11 to 13 getting the largest increase ranging from 24.1 to 30 percent, and those in SG 1 to 10 getting a 17.5 to 20.5 percent over four years. Those in SG 25 to 33 would be getting a pay increase of 8 percent.
The new increases, which follow the series of pay hikes under Executive Order No. 201 issued in 2016 by then President Aquino, have made compensation packages for public officials and employees closer to being at par with that of their private sector counterparts.
Around 5 years ago, then Civil Service Chairman Francisco Duque III gave some insights about the pay of our civil servants when he was guest in my DZMM teleradyo program Sagot Ko ‘Yan (8 to 9 am Sundays). He said that the basic monthly pay of the President of the Philippines at P150K then was way below the millions other ASEAN heads of state get, and that the chief executive officer of a private middle-sized company has a higher salary than that of our nation’s chief executive.
Duque also said that the higher the level public officials are in, the lower the pay compared to that of their private counterparts – it may even be as low as 70 percent less for a department undersecretary, which is at third-level category, compared to a mid-level private executive. But today, things are different. The last tranche of the pay hike implemented in 2019 showed the monthly pay of the President (SG 33) at P399,739 and the Vice President (SG 32) at P353,470. It may still be far from the millions ASEAN heads of state get, but it is a vast improvement from that of 5 years ago.
Also in 2019, a Cabinet secretary got a basic monthly pay of P295,191; an undersecretary, P196,206; an assistant secretary, P173,634; and a bureau director P153,658. Compared to the pay in 2014, it can be said current compensation rates have become competitive.
with competitive compensation packages, it is believed that government will be able to attract the “best and the brightest” self-respecting professionals capable of rendering honest work in exchange for substantial pay and benefits.
But is a person’s integrity dependent on huge pay? Not necessarily, because the dishonest and the greedy will always have an insatiable appetite for many things, even ill-gotten. Yet a substantial amount of take-home pay will keep the honest and dedicated civil servant from financial worries and therefore, would be less likely to steal. And those who have the tendency to be corrupt will hesitate, lest they risk losing a high-paying job.
Pay hikes in the bureaucracy, which include overworked public school teachers and government nurses, can be considered good news indeed. But it can also be seen as bad news, especially for the education sector. This is because it would widen the disparity in pay between public and private school teachers.
In 2019, the lowest monthly pay of P20,754 for an entry-level public school teacher was considered “extremely high” compared to the private school teacher whose average salary was merely P12,000 to P15,000 monthly in all regions. The legal counsel of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA), Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), and the Philippine Association of Private Schools, Colleges, and Universities (PAPSCU) said there are even private school teachers in one region getting paid only P6,000 monthly.
“Raising the disparity in pay between public and private school teachers would further fuel the migration of private school teachers to public schools and exert financial pressures on private schools whose tuition fees are regulated by government,” according to major business and professional groups like the Makati Business Club, Management Association of the Philippines, and Philippine Business for Education.
Many believe that a remedy would be for government to subsidize the pay increase of private school teachers. Increasing their pay through increased tuition could result in lower enrollment which would then lead to closure of private schools, which would then further strain our public education system plagued with problems like the perennial lack of classrooms.
Email: [email protected]