MANILA – While executives of government-owned and controlled corporation are in competition who will get the highest perks among them, public school teachers and employees continue to beg the government for additional benefits and increase in salaries.
“Kami namang mga guro at kawani ay nakapako o di kaya binabawasan ang mga natatangap na benepisyo,” said Benjie Valbuena, national president of Alliance of Concerned Teachersor ACT.
He said according to a recent report, the Government Service Insurance System or GSIS of which public school teachers make up one-third of its 1.6 million members and whose meager income is way below the cost of living allowance, the Governance Commission for Government Owned or Controlled Corporations (GCG) granted bonuses to GSIS Board of Directors some P10.448 million.
Aside from these, President Benigno Aquino’s Executive Order No. 24 gave GSIS President and General Manager Robert Vergara the title “highest paid government executive for 2012” and recorded to have received a total of P16.36 million in salary in 2012, almost double the P8.32 million he received in 2011, according to 2012 Report on the Salaries and Allowances posted by the Commission on Audit.
Vergara’s 2012 pay included P9.65 million in basic salaries for 15 months; P4.97 million in “bonuses, incentives and benefits”; P1.684 million allowances; P7,500 personal economic relief allowance; and P51,000 listed only as “Others.”
“It is ironic that while hundreds of thousands of teachers and government employees, who are members of GSIS receive meager income and despite of this make sure they pay their monthly contribution to the GSIS, patuloy naman nagpapakasarap sa milyong sweldo at benepisyo ang pamunuan nito. Habang na nanatili parin ang problema ng reconciliation of records, updating of individual members accounts at unjust deductions sa mga myembro,” Valbuena said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
“Hindi dapat mapunta ang increase income ng GSIS sa bulsa ng mga direktor dapat itong pakinabangan ng mas na kakaraming myembro sa pamamagitan ng mataas na benepisyo at mahusay na serbisyo,” he said.
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