MP prov’l workers get salaryhike

By Angel Baybay

BONTOC, Mountain Province – Provincial employees received the Christmas gift they longed for – salary increase.

For weeks, the 828 provincial employees were clueless whether the local government unit would implement the four-year salary adjustment even after the two houses of congress approved their own version of the Salary Standardization Law.

If the bi-cameral committee will iron out differences in the two versions, national government workers will get their first tranche increase on January next year since the financial obligation is included in the national budget.

With the nationally employed workers almost certain of enjoying the wage increase next year, the provincial employees were so much concerned on the provincial government’s financial capacity to subsidize the expected expense and the political will of provincial leaders to implement such directive. They were likewise apprehensive of the non-inclusion of any amount to bankroll any salary increase in the 2016 provincial budget which was already approved by the regional Department of Budget and Management last November.

But Gov. Leonard Mayaen said the provincial government will give whatever is due to government workers. “Of course you will be given your salary increase. We are just waiting for the final output of the Senate and House of Representatives bi-cameral committee to guide us on how we will implement the measure,” Mayaen. The provincial government had been cited for its exemplary performance in local governance. The latest feat was the Best Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office in the region. These, the governor said, is the fruit of “our collaborative effort” in seeing through the vision of the province.

Mayaen said he will seek ways by which the first tranche will be implemented next year even though the annual budget was already finalized and eventually was approved by the regional DBM office.

He said through supplemental budget, savings of the various offices will be utilized to fund the unseen expenditure. “We have to implement the first tranche next year so that by 2019 when I finish my third term, the fourth and final tranche would be by then realized,” Mayaen added.

Over and above the salary increase, the proposed salary standardization law also provides for a fourteenth month pay of employees and a performance-based bonus for low ranking workers.