LABOR WATCH
Despite P5,000 Xmas bonus
Gov’t Employees Slam Arroyo for Low Wages
President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo announced that there will be a P5,000 ($93.60) extra
Christmas bonus to all government employees on or before December 15. Why
are government employees, particularly public school teachers, still
unhappy?
BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat
Christina Manalo, 51,
has been a teacher for 26 years now. She used to be indifferent to the
plight of her colleagues, but two years ago, she started joining mass
actions seeking to improve their rights and welfare.
Manalo, a physics
teacher at the E. Rodriguez Jr. High School in Quezon City and a board
member of the Quezon City Public School Teachers Association (QCPSTA), is
one of the hundreds of government employees who, instead of celebrating
the supposed week for them, held a rally on Dec. 7 in front of the
University of Sto.
Tomas in Manila to protest their worsening conditions.
According to her,
pawning one’s automated teller machine (ATM) card to where a teacher’s
salary is credited has been part of the teachers’ lives.
In fact, Manalo said
that she has pawned her ATM card several times to augment her meager
salary. Given her position as Teacher 1, she only earns P11,815 ($221.17,
based on an exchange rate of P53.42 per US dollar) monthly. Taking into
account all her salary deductions, she said that her take-home pay amounts
to a measly P3,500 ($65.52). Unfortunately, even her P3,500 ($65.52) is
used to pay off other loans.
Included in her
private loans is a casket which she pays P450 ($8.42) per month for five
years. Her public loans include Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)
and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth).
“Lahat ng utangan
may utang ang teacher,” she
said. “Pati ang health insurance namin dahil hindi naman kami
sagot ng gobyerno. Pati ataol. Bakit kapag namatay ka ba bibigyan ka ng
gobyerno ng ataol?” (Teachers have loans in practically all lending
agencies. We even pay for our health insurance since this is not
shouldered by the government. Even our casket. Why, will the government
give us a casket if we die?)
She said that even
health insurance companies have a scheme. In case of emergency, Manalo
said that health insurance clients are forced to shell out their money
first and wait for the reimbursement later. “Kaya ka nga kumuha ng
health card dahil wala kang pera.” (The reason for getting a health
card is that you don’t have money.)
With the death of her
father, she was forced to use her casket plan. “Kapag namatay ako,
ilatag na lang ako sa kalye, tapos ibenta sa College of
Medicine,”
(If I die, just put me on the street and sell my body to the
College of
Medicine.)
she said.
She also revealed
that in one of the teachers’ dialogues with Education Undersecretary Fe
Hidalgo, there were teachers who have started to do the laundry of other
people and sell their blood just to earn money.
“Wala ka na ngang
dignidad sa gobyerno, wala ka pang dignidad sa kapwa mo Pilipino.,”
she said. “Nakakasuka na yon.” (The government has taken away your
dignity, and you even lose your dignity to your fellow Filipinos. This is
really sickening.)
Manalo said that the
lowest salary of a public school teacher is P9,939 ($186.05). The
take-home pay is not enough to meet basic needs, according to her.
“Nakapakong
suweldo sa patuloy na lumolobong presyo ng mga bilihin, paano ka mabubuhay
sa ganyang klase ng sistema?”
she said. “What is P3,000 ($56.16) across the board? Hindi naman
makakabuhay yan.” (Wages remain the same despite the increased prices
of commodities, so how can you survive under that system?. What is P3,000
or $56.16 across the board [monthly increase demanded by government
employees]? You still cannot survive with that.)
Ferdinand Gaite,
national president of Courage, said that economic difficulty remains the
main problem of public employees.
Gaite
said that it has been four years and four months since they last had a
salary increase. He said that the lowest monthly salary received by
government employees is P5,082 ($95.13). Normally, the government employee
who earns this amount only has P3,000 ($56.16) left after deductions.
According to the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC), the
family living wage in the National Capital Region (NCR) as of October 2005
amounts to P20,520 ($384.12).
With
the already low wages, Gaite said that they have also not received for 10
years the backpay of their
cost-of-living allowance
(COLA) since Republic Act (RA) No. 6758 or the Salary Standardization Law
was passed in 1989.
The
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) issued Corporate Compensation
Circular No. 10 on November 1, 1989 which discontinued all allowances and
fringe benefits granted on top of basic salary aside from those enumerated
in the circular. It even said that “payment made for such allowance/fringe
benefits after said date shall be considered as illegal disbursement of
public funds.”
But the
Supreme Court held in 1998 that until and unless the Department of Budget
and Management (DBM) issued implementing rules categorically excluding the
COLA and the amelioration allowance from standardized salaries, “there
could not have been any valid notice to the government employees concerned
that indeed those allowances were deemed included in the standardized
salary rates.”
However, Gaite said
the Court decision has not been implemented.
Extra bonus
The president
announced Dec. 8 during the anniversary of the Philippine Government
Employees Association (PGEA) that it granted P5,000 ($93.60) additional
extra Christmas bonus to government employees and shall be received before
the year ends.
No good model
Manalo’s political
awakening made her aware of the situation of the country’s workers.
“We really have to
raise the socio-economic and political maturity of the teachers,” she
said. “The government wants quality education but it does not provide
quality treatment to its workers.”
She stressed the
importance of teaching critical thinking to students. “Never mind if you
get zero in the exam, I don’t care, for as long as you don’t cheat,” she
said. “Because once you cheat, you go to Malacañang. If you’re a cheater,
you’re a liar, once of these days, you will become the president of this
country.” Bulatlat
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.