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THERE
may be no wage-hike announcement for minimum-wage
earners on Labor Day, but President Arroyo is expected
to announce today an executive order granting a
10-percent salary hike for state workers effective July.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita confirmed to
reporters on Wednesday that the EO is ready for the
President’s signature upon her arrival that day from
Cagayan de Oro, the final leg of her Central Nautical
Highway caravan that started in Bulan, Sorsogon.
The
long-planned 10-percent increase in the basic pay is
part of the multiyear schedule for the staggered
increase in public-sector wages, a policy that was
forged in 2006.
Budget
Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. earlier said the
salary-hike scheme was brought about by the idea of
pacing the salary hike with the improvement in revenue
collections, and that the congressional grant of the
authority of the increase was made last year.
Andaya
had also said that the P12-billion fund for the salary
hike had been programmed under the 2008 national budget,
and would not affect the government’s balanced-budget
target this year.
A
10-percent increase in the basic pay of 898,849 national
government employees will cost P9.216 billion for six
months, and P2.844 billion for an estimated 277,905
soldiers, policemen, firemen, jail guards and Coast
Guard personnel for the same period. The pay hike will
be the third in 30 months in the public sector.
As part
of her celebration of Labor Day, the President is
expected to either visit ongoing Regional Tripartite
Wage and Productivity Board meetings and have labor
sector consultations at the Occupational Health and
Safety Center; or the World Trade Center for the
official launching of the GMA Jobs Center Kiosk, and to
join the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-led
labor groups. |
