Compared to the private sector, workers in the government bureaucracy are paid very small salaries. Analysts say that this is why there is unmitigated corruption in government. Their suggestion: make the compensation of civil servants at par with their counterparts in the private sector, or at least make their compensation sufficient enough for them to live fairly decent lives. That is, of course, easier said than done, because salaries of civil servants involve government funds.
Experts also contend that the low compensation given to civil servants discourages bright people from joining the civil service, thus depriving the government of their expertise.
In the years following February 1986, government agencies headed by officials close to either the president or congressional leaders got large budgets which, in turn, translated to high salaries for their top officials. Often, the allowances were larger than the salaries.
State agencies which did not have the right connections got a small piece of the national budget. As a result, some government officials got large salaries and allowances while others did not.
To address that inequity, Congress eventually enacted the salary standardization law, which mandated that government employees shall be compensated on the basis of fixed salary grades. Under this law, the salary of a government employee is based on his salary grade, and not on how much money his agency has.
At first, the arrangement worked fine, until some top government officials started exempting favored line agencies from the salary standardization law. Soon thereafter, many agencies got exemptions from the law. Worse, the exemptions allowed the agencies concerned to give their officials very large allowances. This arrangement continued well into the administration of President Benigno Aquino III.
Attention is invited to the Social Security System, the state agency in charge of welfare and pension funds for employees in the private sector. Employees covered by the SSS are entitled to financial assistance for medical needs, and retirement benefits, to name a few.
Since only private-sector employees who are members of the SSS are entitled to coverage, employers are urged to register their employees with the system. The arrangement calls for the employer and the employee to make separate monthly contributions to the SSS, with the government providing its own share of monthly contributions. By the time the employee concerned retires, he will be entitled to a retirement package from the SSS in an amount higher than what has been contributed.
To be able to make such payments, the SSS is allowed to invest a percentage of the contributions. The rest must be retained in a government bank as trust funds. Profits and interest earned are held in trust by the SSS for its beneficiaries.
Under the law, an employer who fails to make a monthly contribution is liable for criminal prosecution.
Since SSS officials are government employees, their compensation must come from the government, in the same way other government employees are compensated. That is pure theory. Truth to tell, SSS officials draw salaries and allowances far higher than those of other bureaucrats.
The news media recently reported that SSS president and chief executive officer Emilio de Quiroz Jr. drew a salary of P6.8 million and huge allowances for 2014. That sum is much higher than the official compensation given to the president of the Philippines.
How come the SSS chief draws a salary and receives allowances in such a huge amount, when other government employees don’t? The excuse tendered by the SSS is that unless the compensation of its top officials can compete with salaries offered by big corporations in Metropolitan Manila, the SSS will be unable to attract bright and competent managers and administrators.
If that is so, then how come the professors of the University of the Philippines System, who are admittedly the best and the brightest in their respective fields, are not given the same level of compensation? Why is it that the UP president, the main man in the UP hierarchy, receives compensation far less than what the SSS chief gets?
It also appears that members of the SSS board and top SSS administrative officials are also among the highest compensated government officials in the country. One SSS board member is known to be very close to Mar Roxas of the pro-administration Liberal Party.
Is the extraordinarily large compensation given to the SSS president and board directors warranted?
Prior to the May 9 elections, President Benigno Aquino III vetoed a proposed law which would have increased the benefits of SSS members. The excuse given: The SSS does not have enough funds for the increase. However, a group of civic-minded congressmen led by Neri Colmenares revealed that the lack of funds is attributable to many reasons, including the dismal and unexplained failure of the SSS to collect unpaid contributions.
The failure to collect unpaid contributions is plain incompetence on the part of the SSS top management. Employees who do not pay their share of contributions can be charged in criminal proceedings, without too much expense for the SSS. The public prosecutor, who does not need to be paid by the SSS, can handle the case.
Actually, if the SSS enforced the law as it should have done so in the first place, then there would have been enough funds to possibly prevent the veto of the proposed law which would have increased the benefits of SSS members.
Also, the SSS seems keen on selling some of its assets, ostensibly to raise funds. If the SSS needs funds, doesn’t the large compensation its officials receive stand out like a sore thumb?
Since President-elect Rodrigo Duterte intends to clean up the bureaucracy, and he should, he ought to revamp the SSS. Duterte must act fast because critics reveal that there is an ongoing move to increase the annual salary of the SSS president by half a million pesos.