Press Release
June 2, 2009

SENATE SET TO RATIFY PAY HIKE BEFORE RECESS, SAYS ANGARA
As bicam panel approves new gov't pay scheme

Senator Edgardo J. Angara today announced that the Senate is set to ratify a new pay scale system for the government after a bicameral conference swiftly reconciled and approved the House and Senate versions of the bill yesterday.

"Senate Joint Resolution No. 26 shall lay the legal basis for a revised compensation structure that corrects the faults and weaknesses of the present system. In particular, this joint resolution seeks to benchmark the government compensation structure with the private sector. This provides higher basic pay increases for positions where the disparities in pay are largest," said Angara who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance.

He added, "Studies show that the Philippines is at the lowest end of the scale in terms of the monthly salaries of their government employees and officials. The position classification system is also riddled with many inconsistencies such as the overlapping of salaries between salary grades in the present schedule and certain classes who enjoy much higher pay scale, it is indeed in dire need of modification to remove inequities between positions."

Angara also emphasized the need to address the disparity in salaries between our government executives compared to their private sector counterparts.

For instance, the Civil Service Commission found that the salaries of senior managers and highly technical personnel in government were 74 percent below their equivalents in the private sector. Likewise salaries of professional and technical personnel in government were about 40 percent below the benchmark.

That senator told that given these inequities, our country's professionals have increasingly been lured by higher pay in private firms.

He added that salary inconsistencies also exist within the government in the form of SSL exemptions and job classification distortions.

For example, Land Bank, which is exempted from SSL, offers better compensation relative to other government agencies. In terms of distortions, similar jobs across agencies are ranked differently.

Another part of the self-made distortion are the political appointments in professional and higher technical positions. Records show that a big majority of those appointments are unqualified.

Senator Edgardo Angara said that the Senate Joint Resolution No. 26 adopts a Total Compensation Framework or the TCF which seeks to rationalize and standardize the basic salaries, allowances, benefits and incentives for government officials and employees. The basic salary, including step increments where an employee may progress from step1 to step8 of the salary grade allocation of his position in recognition of meritorious performance based on a performance management system under the rules promulgated by the Civil Service Commission and Dept of Budget and Management will be the TCF's primary component.

"The approved resolution was enacted precisely to correct the distortions and anomalies in our compensation system by making the pay scale and structure more responsive to the pressing economic needs of our public servants," added Angara.

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