After so much griping, series of appeals--and even scolding--, the much-talked Performance-Based Bonus (PBB) for personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) that was supposed to be given in 2019 was finally released.
Police Brig. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez, director of the PNP Finance Service, said the more than P3 billion PBB fund was released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and was already deposited to the bank accounts of a total of 201,398 qualified PNP personnel.
The PBB 2019 for the PNP became one of the main sources of griping in the PNP which prompted then PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar to create a special team to investigate the reason and to do something after he was bombarded with complaints by his men as early as assuming the top PNP post in May last year.
During the probe, it was learned that the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Harmonization of National Government Performance Monitoring, Information and Reporting Systems had disqualified the PNP for failure to meet the requirements.
Some PNP units, according to the investigation, was the reason of the disqualification as they failed to comply with the requirements being asked by the national government's task force, foremost of it was the failure to post and update procurement reports and other documents to the Performance Governance System of the national government.
Eleazar then tasked the special team he created to appeal the disqualification last year, to which the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Harmonization of National Government Performance Monitoring, Information and Reporting Systems has granted but on the condition that the requirements must be met.
It took months before the requirements were met and as a punishment, all the PNP personnel who were responsible for the disqualification were removed from the list of those who would receive the PBB 2019.
The grant of the PBB Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 is subject to the guidelines in reference to Fiscal Directive No. 2022 - 01 entitled, "Grant of Performance - Based Bonus for FY 2019 to Eligible PNP Personnel" to implement such benefit for all qualified PNP uniformed and Non-uniformed personnel.
Nartatez said the release of PBB 2019 to individual personnel, like other bonuses, is subject to eight percent tax.
"Those personnel who were found guilty of administrative and/or criminal cases by final and executory judgement in FY 2019, shall not be entitled to PBB," said PNP chief Gen. Dionardo Carlos for his part.