Panlilinlang, panlalamang at panggugulang, was how Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan described the Malacaang plan to increase top government officials’ salaries by 100-percent and the rank-and-file employees’ by 50-percent.
The current administration’s proposal is iniquitous and outrageous. The great disparity between the increase in the salaries of high ranking officials and those of ordinary employees will only benefit the former and not lift the latter from their dire situation, she said.
The teachers’ salary for example, will increase only by 6,000 pesos far from the 9,000 pesos they need and demand. Public school teachers nationwide currently receive a minimum pay of around 10,000 pesos monthly, which, after deductions amounts to around only around 5,000 pesos.
The proposal does not include the non-government workers who only earn 210-382 pesos daily. The lowest wage earners are from Mindanao, particularly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), where government employees receive only 117.32 pesos in real wages. This amount is far below the family living wage or the minimum amount needed for a family of six to meet their daily food and non-food needs pegged at 891 pesos.
Our teachers have been pushing for a 9,000-peso salary increase and our workers for a 125 across-the-board wage hike for years now. But even after a number of oil and food price hikes which drove them towards extreme poverty and hunger. Malacaang has been playing ignorant of their pleas.
According to Ilagan, what the teachers and workers urgently need is a legislated wage hike and not dole-outs and one-time subsidies President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo brags as alternatives for genuine pro-people programs.
The solon from Davao, herself a former teacher, urges her fellow legislators to pass in the House and in the Senate HB 1722 (providing P125 across the board wage hike for workers) which she co-authored with progressive partylist representatives from Gabriela Women’s Party, Bayan Muna and Anakpawis, and HB 4734 (providing P9,000 salary increase for teachers) which she principally authored.
We should give them (teachers and workers) what is due them now. What they are asking is nothing compared to what high officials are already getting.
For reference:
Rep. Luz C. Ilagan 0920-9213221
Abby Valenzuela (Public Information Officer) 0915-7639619
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