FOR THE past two years with Gov. Lilia G. Pineda at the helm, Capitol workers have been receiving Christmas bonus of P40,000 each, manifest as much of the financial surplus as the fiscal management obtaining in the Nanay administration.
In enacting legislation upholding the bonus, Vice Gov. Joseller Guiao said the provincial government has the fund for the bonus, having generated an excess well over P1 billion from quarry collections and real property taxes, primarily.
The happiness of the two Christmases past may well be…well, really past. With Budget Secretary Butch Abad acting the miserly Scrooge, aye, the very Grinch that stole Christmas from the Capitol employees.
Abad has declared that the performance-based bonus (PBB) – ranging from P5,000 to P35,000 – is granted only to workers who rendered “exceptional service.”
To government employees, that instantly makes Abad one big PBB, not Pinoy Big Brother but Penny-pinching Budget Boss.
“The PBB is certainly not an entitlement,” Abad says, unlike the 13th-month pay, the yearend cash bonus of P5,000 and the productivity enhance incentive (PEI) of P5,000.
“A decisively merit-based scheme.” Abad says of the PBB, intended to plug a loophole in the bureaucracy that results in bonuses being distributed arbitrarily.
PBB, Abad adds, “would ensure that the administration gives bonuses based solely on merit and quality of performance in terms of meeting targets set by a government department.”
Verily like the Dickensian miserly grouch, Abad furthers: “The targets are actually measurable and strictly empirical, so that office higher-ups can preserve the objectivity of their assessments…(with performance) as measured by verifiable, observable, credible and sustainable indicators.”
“What this ultimately translates to is improved service to Filipinos, not to mention greater morale among public servants and visible, positive reform across the bureaucracy,” enthuses Abad.
What this entirely translates to is indignation of the government workers, desperate over the loss of something that have been given for the past two years.
Something that may have already been pawned to some usurer or loan shark for some immediate cash for some critical needs – such as second semester tuition for the kids, repair of homes hit by the floods of habagat or some unpaid bills.
With Abad’s bonus machinations, the Capitol employees are haunted by their bonus-deprived Christmas past under Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio.
Immediately after the traditional Feast of the Three Kings in January 2010 we wrote here:
Bonus of contention
THE LANTERN had been taken down from the front window, the multi-colored lights put back to their boxes, the tree and all its trimmings boxed too and stored in the attic or in the closet.
The queso de bola and ham consumed. Even the Three Kings had come and gone their way back to oblivion.
The holidays are over, still the Capitol employees yearn for their Christmas bonus.
Obstinately, Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio maintains that the cash bonus of P10,000 – already given – was all.
The other P10,000 – being claimed as a right of all Capitol employees – is but a privilege to those who shall make the grade in some performance evaluation and appraisal process.
Panlilio, whom I likened to the curmudgeon Scrooge here a few issues back, has even asked the sangguniang panlalawigan to revoke Ordinance 378 which approved the release of the P20,000 bonuses, and to approve across-the-board the P10,000 from the P23 million personnel savings.
As is his wont, Panlilio developed verbal diarrhea on the bonus issue, lashing Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao and the SP with illogical non-sequiturs like their non-attendance in flag-raising rites, reporting to work only once a week, exclusion from using required biometrics for their attendance and wearing proper uniforms.
Ululated Panlilio: “Is it justifiable that the vice governor and I both receive equally when he reports to the Capitol one day a week if ever he does and I work on a regular basis?”
Panlilio – with more than the necessary exclamation point now – said it is the governor who makes the supplemental budgets, such as funds for bonuses, and not the SP.
Retorted Guiao: “He is ignorant. He does not know the budget process.” The approval of the SP is a requisite to the allocation of every fund request, no matter how small, Guiao snorted at the Gov.
Lectured the Coach: “You cannot equate performance with how many days you go to your office.
When he says we go to our offices once a week that is, the session. Legislation is judged by the results and the outputs of the SP. There is no backlog in our office, no unattended issue.
Everything in the SP and the Office of the Vice Governor is up-to-date. We have reported on our accomplishments.”
Guiao going for the jugular: “(Panlilio’s) problem is that he does not have any targets. He did not set any objectives in the first place, like in terms of infrastructure, how many kilometers of roads have to be constructed?
How many classrooms for schools? How many Philhealth cards? How many additional scholars?
How many millions in investments for the province? How much employment should be generated? Nothing, eh…So how can he say he is performing well? What is his basis?”
His unsolicited advice to the Gov: “MBO – manage by objectives and results, stop issuing mother statements and refrain from blaming others.”
Even ad hominems and ad misericordiams Guiao engaged in his arguments: “And look. The SP budget is a measly P5 million compared to his P32 million plus all the intelligence funds and supplemental budgets.
But we provide more help to our constituents judging from the number of people seeking assistance everyday at the SP. What does he want us to do? We have approved the budgets he needs, now he should work on that.”
And the coup de grace: “The governor has no accomplishments. He thrives on intrigues.
There are no concrete accomplishments based on objectives set early last year.
He should have set those goals so there can be proper matters that can be evaluated. So what is happening now is that it is our poor who suffer because of his ignorance of legislative processes.”
As long as Panlilio’s stay as governor is the problem of Christmas bonus of Capitol employees. Conversely, Panlilio is apparently the very problem of the Christmas bonus.
“Capitol X’mas bonus divides Gov, SP anew” cried the banner of Punto! on December 19, 2007.
Read the story: ”Even in the granting of Christmas bonus for the employees of the provincial government, Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio has remained at odds with the sangguniang panlalawigan.
At Monday’s flag-raising ceremony, Panlilio announced that the employees would receive a Christmas bonus of P10,000 each.
This did not sit well with the employees as the SP earlier approved P20,000 as Christmas bonus.”
A year after, on December 17, 2008, the editorial of Punto! titled ‘One-time big time’ read: ”After weeks of neither-here-nor-there posturing, the Honorable Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio finally decided to approve the release of the P20,000 cash gift to each Capitol employee.
This, though only after serious talks with the Capitol Employees’ Union and an affirmation from the Department of the Budget and Management on the nature of the gifts…
“One-time, big time.” So said the Reverend Governor of the bonus. Which the sangguniang panlalawigan had long decided – even as Panlilio hee-hawed – as most fitting and appropriate for the Capitol employees.
So what happens now to the performance evaluation that Panlilio earlier insisted as a requisite to the granting of the P10,000 half of the gifts?
Deferred for next year, to fine tune the whole thing.
“There is a challenge for us to systematize the rewards system and set to archive agreed upon targets. There is already an existing evaluation but we need to systematize it all the more,” Panlilio was quoted as saying.”
Okay. Fair enough for the Capitol employees. For now though, everyone is assured of a happy Christmas.”
So unfair now we see. The promised performance evaluation system still up in the air a year after. And this bonus row again. As it was in 2007, as it was in 2008, so it was in 2009 too.
Pray it would not happen in Christmas 2010. Better, make sure it does not happen. All that is needed to do is to take the problem out of the Capitol.
q q q
OF COURSE, that problem was taken out of the Capitol in May 2010 and it was happy Christmas that year for the Capitol employees. And in 2011 too.
Now, the Grinch is eyeing the Capitol anew. Bah, hambug!
