This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 44, December
11-17, 2005
LABOR WATCH
Despite P5,000 Xmas
bonus
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 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. 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. But Gaite instead said that
government employees were “once again insulted by this shabby treatment, as if
we’ll be appease with mere crumbs.” He added that if ever
reports that the amount for the bonus will be taken from the combined savings of
the national government agencies, “then the employees have nobody to thank for
except themselves for prudently spending the peoples’ money while those in
Malacañang have been on a spending binge.” He added that the austerity
measures imposed by the government for the past two years have taken its toll
more on the employees because this meant no training or seminars, no
scholarships, no additional benefits and even a 10 hour-four day work week
schedule, “like cutting our fingers to feed our children.” Government employees are
also waiting for the promised salary increase. Arroyo announced that the
government had allotted 13 billion pesos for the salary increase of its
employees in the proposed 2006 budget. The 2006 budget, however,
is still being deliberated in the Congress. 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 © 2005 Bulatlat
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Gov’t Employees Slam Arroyo for Low Wages
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